The Duck and the Segways

Never pick up a duck in a dungeon.

So there Matt and I are in Franklin Park, fat and bloated from some good Five Guys and sci-fi discourse, trying to keep our laughter down as a pack of wild Segway riders (seriously, there was like twelve of them) circles the park like a trail of grossly overtechnologized ducklings.  I think they were having a class or something, or maybe they signed up for like an anti-dating service.  “Boo hoo, attractive single people keep throwing themselves at me and frankly it’s getting distracting.  I know!  I’ll ride around D.C. with eleven other awkwardly dressed people on a Segway to flaunt my disregard for any sort of personal intimacy in this or the next life!”

But this story is not about the Segway riders stalking me through D.C. (oh, it wasn’t the first time I’d met these nerdy Horsemen of the Apocalypse, oh no this was one of many such encounters.  And by ‘many’ I mean one other time they were going down the street and I ran after them, screaming “Take me with you!  Don’t leave me here with just my feet to transport me around!”)  No, this story is about the man feeding squirrels a couple of benches over, who may have been Snow White in blackface.  (Hey, it may not be PC, but I wouldn’t put it past Disney.)  Squirrels, pigeons, rats, all denizens of the urban park were coming out to raid his backpack for food.  We chuckle a bit, go back to our conversation, and then lay eyes on The Duck.

Let’s set the stage here.  Franklin Park is right in the middle of D.C.  As in, nowhere near water.  Ducks, on the other hand, are nearly always very near water.  So right off the bat we stop, cock our heads a little, and say “whoa, what’s that duck doing here?”  Because it’s just one duck.  One duck, out for a stroll through D.C., wandering along on his lonesome.

Here are the options that we came up with:

1.) He’s a loner, a rebel, a loose cannon exiled from Duckdom and sent out on a spiritual journey to commune with the Spirits of the Ancient Ducks to find his place in life and come to grips with whatever is haunting his tiny duck brain.

2.) He was given a quest by the Wise Old Man of the Ducks to go vanquish some evil that’s threatening his village and the entire hopes and dreams of his family ad everyone he knows rests on those feathered shoulders.

3.) He’s lost.

Either way, this duck appears out of nowhere (4.) He’s a ninja).  He waddled his little feathered butt around for a bit, smells some food being handed out…and starts going after my shoes.  Now, I feel I’m fairly comfortable with wildlife.  I’ve certainly had my fair share of close encounters with more dangerous animals (which is a couple different stories what FORESHADOWING!) and you would think that hey, it’s just a duck.  Well maybe you should read those options up there again, because three out of the four of them sound pretty vicious and the last thing you want to go is give a ninja duck a good kick in the breastfeathers because you know it’s only getting worse from there.

So I bent over a little, looked down at my hungry acquaintance, and said, “Hey, Duck.  Stop eating my shoes.  They are made of plastic and my feet.”  The duck, apparently realizing his dilemma, squawked off and jumped the poor man throwing breadcrumbs everywhere.  Crisis averted.

I hope he saves his village.  Or finds it again.

Whatever, it’s obvious he was a ninja.