A Tribute to my Friend the Duck

A couple posts ago I got pretty heated while talking about the geese that walk around like they own the Mojo plantation. Some of my readers have questioned my manhood for complaining about geese-attacks. There have even been some who have questioned my understanding of the animal kingdom. They tell me that all animals are territorial and that I am invading their natural habitats. Others have reminded me that geese are beautiful and accused me of goose-envy. One particular grump e-mailed me to tell me that this sort of hatred for animals resulted in entire species going extinct. I’m going to stick to my guns on this one though, because I don’t think any of my critics have ever been attacked by geese and I am pretty sure goose-extinction shouldn’t be anyone’s top concern these days. The worldwide economy looks like it’s in a long-term recession and this idiot is worried about geese?
Now, I know that writing about geese for the second time in my first ten blog posts might call my credibility as a serious writer into question. If however, that is what you are thinking than you should reserve judgement on my writing for a minute. Because this post is not actually about geese. It is about ducks.
My literary reputation remains intact.
In my post on geese I commented on the duck that lives with the geese. I’m pretty sure my exact words were “the duck just goes about minding its own business and eating dirt”. It might not have seemed like a particularly endearing comment, but something about that duck waddling around eating dirt really connected with me. For an animal to gain my affection I don’t really ask for that much. I don’t need an animal to do tricks or play games with me. I don’t need an animal to protect me and my family. Generally speaking, my only requirement to enjoy the company of an animal is that it not attack me. So I’ve got to say that even though the duck hung out with the asshole geese, I came to appreciate it for not bowing to peer pressure and physically abusing me.
The last couple days I even started feeding the duck scraps of bread. This was doubly rewarding for me as I got to play with a duck and also make the geese jealous. I even thought about naming the duck, but then I remembered people were already questioning my manhood for being afraid of geese so I stuck with calling it “Duck”.
As you can probably tell me and this duck had a pretty good thing going. Nothing too serious, just some good company once or twice a day. But this morning I was drinking my coffee reading an old issue of “Us Weekly”, and I hear a commotion coming from where the geese had been holding fort. I look up from my article on Heath Ledger’s supposed out-of-wedlock child, and see the three geese go flying past me. I didn’t even know the geese could fly so I knew right there and then that there was trouble afoot. Without even standing up I turned my head quickly to the left. That was all it took for me to see what had happened. There, hanging from the mouth of Stella, the owner’s German Sheppard, was my friend the duck.
I’m not going to go into any details about the dead duck because in all honesty it was pretty disturbing. But this afternoon as I walked down to get myself some lunch I looked at the geese and I regretted writing that post a few days back. Those geese looked at me and they let me pass by undisturbed. I’ll bet the geese gave that duck a hard time back when it was alive. The probably treated it like their annoying younger brother who won’t stop playing with his Yak-Bak. But I’d be willing to bet even more that those geese are going to miss having that duck around, just eating dirt and minding it’s own business. And maybe it won’t last past tonight, but for at least one day that duck’s death helped the geese and I lay down our arms and live in harmony.
So tonight I’m pouring one on the curb in memory of my old friend the duck, who did what no one else could and brought peace to the Mojo Plantation.