Meaning in the Mundane {39}: Ducks.

Something frivolous to keep my brain from thinking about…other things.

One of my best friends has a small brace of mallards. He got them, mail order, when the were babies — I don’t know exactly how old — but they were small and skittish balls of fluff cowering in the corner of their box under the heat lamp. To my surprise, they didn’t quack — like young boys changing voices, the males learn to quack as they age.

It also comes as quite a shock to them.

This is perhaps the most appealing quality of ducks. They are utterly shocked by the development of traits and abilities that we silly humans take for granted as being utterly and inherently duck-like. When the first quacks began to emerge, it would come from an incessant chorus of soft chirps and coos and whistles — QUACK!! — and then a pause…and then an excited conversation in duck-ese about who had just done that and what, exactly, it was.

When they first started to fly, it was a similarly exciting affair. One of them got spooked from his kiddie pool and began to run, wings outstretched and then lo! His feet left the ground and he sort of trip-flew about four feet. When he landed — rather gracefully, I might add — the others, who had been standing by the pool watching in duck-amazement (duckmazement?), ran over to this newly gifted messiah duck, chirping and cooing and whistling (and here and there, an awkward QUACK, to be sure) in the most excited voices you’ve ever heard from, well…birds.

Today, I set myself up a duck visiting date. (Things have gotten chaotic and shitty and ducks are amusing as hell.) As we approached the enclosure, I stopped, holding my hand in the universal stealth code for — stop! — and turned back motioning for everyone to move slowly and quietly. Four of the six ducks had managed to fly over the tall wire fence and were standing as close to their still entrapped brethren as they could. They were frantically quacking at each other through the barrier, confused by this new development.

Through some carefully coordinated movements (which mainly consisted of my friend yelling that he was “gonna go open the gate!” and a reminder to “not go to fast or they’ll fly!!”), we managed to coral the escapees, and true to form, they ran toward each other, interrogating the rouges about their adventure on the other side, while the brave travelers told tales about their ordeal.

Ducks. They’re hilarious.