I got to sleep in this morning. I thought my day was going to be pretty good. I got up at 5:30am, took a shower, cleaned up, prepared the living room for book club tomorrow and I was warming up the car to leave for my meeting when I went outside to feed the duck. When I shut the door, I witnessed, with my own two eyes, the damn duck take god damned fucking flight at least five feet off of the ground all the way over the fence to keep her out of the garden and to the fence that separates her from being duck confit pour les chiens. I'm talking about fucking migrating duck flight pattern; not a little hop. I screamed. And by screamed, I mean I screeched at the top of my lungs the whole time she was in the air, scared to death that she was going to fly into the other yard; scared to death that she was flying so high and wondering how the fuck I was going to catch the duck. Then, I did the only thing I could, trembling with fear and adrenaline: I shut off the truck, grabbed the scissors and went out to catch my duck for a double wing clip.
Even not recovering from surgery, catching a duck is tough business because they are wily and generally unwilling to be caught and I was also fearful that she would fly into the Big Backyard, or heaven forbid the neighbor's yard and I would have to walk over and say to the neighbors at 7:00am, "Excuse me can I please get in your yard to try to catch my duck?" I quickly formulated a plan in which I would use the purple stripped beach towel in a matador like fashion to corral her in a corner where she would be unable to run or fly away. She quickly formulated a plan to evade my purple stripped beach towel. We tangled and did ring around the rosey by the tree and her duck house, but I was damn determined to catch her so that she would not kill herself by flying into the Big Backyard. And finally I prevailed and snatched her up on the patio and cut both her wings. It was difficult because I was shaking so badly from fright. I clipped both her wings and she tried to wiggle away. Then I put her down, but thought that I hadn't cut them enough, so I snatched her back up before her pea sized brain knew what was happening and clipped them some more. When I put her back down again, I realized that I probably could have clipped closer, so I tried to catch her a third time, but it wasn't successful.
Because of the unexpected wing cut, I had to hurry to leave so as not to be late for my meeting, and I quickly directed the dogs not to eat the duck and then I did what I always do in these situations: I called the Big Guy and said, "Dad the god damned duck..." and he did what he always does which is not really listen to me. He did say maybe she was trying to fly south for the winter, but that's just dumb because south of the Little Backyard is the Big Backyard and I told him as much and I also told him that I might not go over there because if I got home and the duck was dead I was going to be pretty upset. He said, "Ok, well, we'll be here." Clearly, our definitions of emergency and panic differ greatly.
The result of all this activity? One duck that is still alive and me stuck on the couch in a drug induced semi-stupor.
God damned duck.
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| Approximate trajectory of the duck's flight. |
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| The god damned duck with a new wing clip |
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| Sometimes the light bothers him while he sleeps. |
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