(Editor’s note: If you’re new here, or aren’t familiar with this man’s writing style, please be aware that he’s not linear. At all. If you’re looking for a straightforward description of this incident, in which he attempts to put an amusing spin on a simple misunderstanding based on a child’s accent, you’re going to be sadly disappointed. His writing is more convoluted than a drunk husband’s explanation of how the lipstick got on his collar. Frankly, it drives us crazy at times.)
So it was around four p.m. on Easter Sunday, and my lovely and talented wife, Aries28, was beginning to develop that nervous tic in her left eye that indicates she’s had it up to here with the chocolate-infused minions. I volunteered to take the two youngest for a walk around the “lake,” which is basically a pond on steroids in our neighborhood, with a walking track around it. It also has a small pavilion and playground nearby, which will become important in a bit.
I grabbed the old bread remnants that we keep on hand to feed the ducks at the lake, put shoes on the nine-year-old and the two-year-old, made sure everyone hit the bathroom, and in a mere 32 minutes (a new record that I’m very proud of) we were out the door and heading for the lake.
It was a beautiful day, with a bright blue sky, a few white puffy clouds floating by on a light breeze, and hundreds of little black seeds on the “everything” bagels in one of the plastic bags I was carrying. The seeds were VERY interesting to the two-year-old, who insisted on carrying that particular bag. He attempted several times to sneak a bagel out of the bag to eat, not caring in the least about the green mold that covered parts of it. I had to be particularly on my guard.
The nine-year-old quickly became bored, and wandered ahead of us as we began walking around the lake. He found a few ducks to “feed,” which in his world means “run at the ducks and fling chunks of bread at them while they squawk and flee.” The two-year-old takes a more laid-back approach, throwing entire bagels and pieces of loaf bread, rather than tearing off small pieces. The ducks around our lake are both well-fed and extremely nervous.
We got to the pavilion and playground area, and the boys wanted to stop feeding ducks and play a bit, which was fine with me. I noticed that a group of 30 or so people were having a birthday celebration in the pavilion, and several of them (adults and children) wandered up to the playground from time to time to play.
Now, I live in the South. As you may have heard, people in the South tend to have a southern accent. There are degrees to these accents, ranging from a very gentle twang to “Squeal like a pig, boy.” The folks at the pavilion weren’t quite in the squeal range, but they were close – you could spit and hit it from where they were. I talked to a couple of people briefly while the kids played, complimented one lady on her Dale Earnhardt tattoo (“Junior ain’t no Ironhead,” she said), and then gathered the boys up to continue our bread-flinging trek around the lake.
One boy from the group formed a fast friendship with my nine-year-old, and they walked together for a ways, threatening ducks with bread, while I continued to prevent the two-year-old from eating green bagels.
Suddenly my attention was drawn to a commotion near the boys – one duck was flapping and quacking to beat the band, and others were scurrying away. I walked up and asked what was going on.
“'Em ducks’ll get close if you hold 'at bread out to 'em,” the boy said.
I agreed that the ducks were very tame, and said they would even take bread right out of your fingers if you were still.
“Yeah, 'at duck got so close I grabbed 'is wang,” the boy continued.
Several things went through my mind at this point:
- This boy just sexually molested a duck.
- My son watched this happen. He will be scarred as a result.
- It will be a loooong time before the ducks (or at least, one duck in particular) will let us feed them again.
- I’ve always been a gentleman when dining out with my wife, and I offer her the bread basket first when it comes to the table. She’s never grabbed my wang in response. I must be doing something wrong.
Naturally, of course, I said none of this. As a responsible adult, it was my duty to instruct the boy, to direct him away from his avian bestiality tendencies, so I carefully considered my response.
“Say what?” I said.
“He came raht up to me, and Ah grabbed his wang.”
“You grabbed his wang?”
“Yep. Nearly got a feather off it.”
And then it hit me – the boy was saying he’d grabbed the duck’s WING. His accent just made it sound like he’d grabbed something else. Thank God.
I told him not to grab the ducks (which is a phrase you don’t expect to say many times in your life), and we continued our walk. He soon got even more bored than my nine-year-old, and headed back to the birthday gathering. I gave him a festive green bagel to take with him.
So all’s well that ends well. I didn’t have to have a talk about the evils of sexually molesting animals with my nine-year-old, the two-year-old didn’t eat any rotten bread that I know of, and the other boy will no doubt tell his family and friends for years to come about the day he grabbed a duck’s wang.
The one downside has been my wife’s reaction. She keeps saying, “I don’t care HOW much bread you offer me, I’m not touching you.”
