Ducks

Ok. For those of you who have provided “subtle” pressure for me to write an essay, here it is, a 5 minute essay (but let it be known I would rather spend an extra 5 minutes in the shower). So it is duck season again. Everyone wants to feed the ducks at the park even though the signs say “Please keep our wild life wild and don’t feed the ducks.” Every year I recall an experience I had a few years back of an encounter with a duck conversationalist (at least she thought she was one). I was enjoying the sun with my 1 and 3 year old at the park. We had forgotten to bring bread for the ducks but we decided to visit them anyway. It was early in the season and I wanted my boys to get some exercise before their nap so I challenged them that if they could catch a duck I would cook it for dinner. They ran as hard as they could with their little legs but neither of them could even come close the ducks who were easily avoiding them while still staying close enough to me to beg for a handout. I wasn’t worried about the safety of the ducks. But someone else was. A lady with her two children was close (actually standing not 5 feet from the “do not feed duck” sign) shelling out more bread than the ducks could eat. When she heard me challenge my boys she hurried over to me in a huff and proceeded to ridicule me for teaching my boys at an early age not to respect animals. Thanks to my decent upbringing I apologized and took my boys to the park, but my husband heard the other half of the story when he got home that night. Let’s just say that in my opinion there would be a lot less hungry people in the world if we could put our local fowl to good use. A duck dinner is actually a specialty in the uptown restaurants. You wouldn’t have to catch and eat all of them, just a few to keep the population under control. And what happened to a nice goose dinner? I don’t think anyone should complain if they caught all of the geese. Then we could finally use the grass area at the park for what it was meant for, to play on. And by the way, at least I was teaching my boys to eat what they caught and not just end its life for the sake of sport. So there is my essay. If you report me to the town of Newington ’s Park and Rec department I’ll deny I said any of it. I love the ducks. They are cute.

P.S. I spent an extra 5 minutes in the shower anyway.