It’s official. We have a lawnrabbit.

We probably have many of them. You know how it is with bunnies. They were born to breed.

Thus far, however, we have only seen our one lawnrabbit. He limits his activities to our small front flowerbed, where he digs holes and eats our fire bushes.

When my husband Fluffy walks past him, however, he is not incriminating himself like that. No, he sits calmly in the flowerbed, facing outward like a tiny, furry lawn decoration. You can almost hear him saying, “What holes in the flowerbed? What partially-consumed fire bushes? Surely you can’t think I would do anything like that?”

Of course, the lawnrabbit has no idea that Fluffy has been observing him from behind the trees, watching him dig those holes with his sharp toenails and stripping the fire bushes of their lower leaves and limbs with his sharp bunny teeth. Oh, he is one busy little lawnrabbit!

When Fluffy gets close enough for the lawnrabbit to see him, however, the lawnrabbit becomes the picture of innocence. He quickly settles himself with his back to the house and his nose to the street, as though he has been sitting there ever since dawn. His posture tells us that making mischief is the farthest thing from his mind. In fact, he is virtuously guarding what is rightfully his — namely, our house.

When Fluffy walks by, the lawnrabbit even pushes his feet out from under his body, displaying his little toenails as if to say, “See? No errant fire bush leaves here!”

Our lawnrabbit is the picture of innocence, even though his little feet are guilty of all sorts of misdeeds.

All the while, our front flowerbed gets more and more holey, and our fire bushes get less and less leafy.

Fluffy and I get great amusement out of the lawnrabbit. I was especially amused the other morning when I heard Fluffy, one hand on a hip and the other shaking a finger at the little transgressor, sternly saying, “You will not eat our fire bushes. You will stop digging holes in our flowerbed immediately.”

The lawnrabbit looked at him placidly, not even dignifying Fluffy’s tirade with an answer.

Sometimes we human beings are disturbingly like our lawnrabbit. We are guilty of big transgressions and small ones, but when others call our actions to our attention, the natural reaction is, “Surely you can’t think that of me?”

I may be so aghast that I have spent the entire afternoon playing computer solitaire rather than working that I will even lie to myself about it rather than confronting the ugly truth. “Surely I did something else in between solitaire games. I can’t remember what it is, but I know I did something.” Or, “Surely Fluffy and I don’t watch that much reality television.” Or, “Surely I didn’t consume that many sunflower seeds. How did the bag get empty?” Or, “Surely that nasty comment didn’t come out of my mouth. I’m not that kind of person.”

The answer is all too apparent to the casual observer, even if we manage to deceive ourselves.

Eventually, at the end of this life, each of us will see our actions replayed in beautiful Technicolor. We will know exactly how many hours we wasted playing computer solitaire or watching reality TV, how many bags of potato chips or pieces of cake we actually consumed, or how many horrible things we actually said to others. Perhaps now is the time to mend our ways while we have time to repent. If we wait until the end, it will be everlastingly too late.