Ed's Duck

There is a saying, “no good deed goes unpunished,” and I’m beginning to believe it might be true.

Last week, I was in a Walgreen’s drug store having some prescriptions filled. As I waited for my drug dealer to count out pills and put them in plastic containers, I walked around the store just to pass the time. Occasionally, Walgreen’s—whose motto is “Buy one for the price of two”—will have some merchandise marked down to prices that would actually be considered sale prices in the real world, and I found some of that merchandise in the pet section. There was a whole bin full of stuffed toys—the kind my dogs like to eviscerate—marked down to one or two dollars. The dogs that live with me have a toy box overstuffed with plush and rubber toys, but I recently noticed many of them had been gutted and only the hides remained, so I decided to refill their coffer.

I plucked out about 20 dollars worth of stuffed cats, footballs, squirrels, several rubber chickens, and one duck. Most of the toys had that little plastic squeaky thing buried inside them that is supposed to delight dogs when they chomp on the midsection, however, the duck had an electronic quack track. If the duck is bitten just right, it will quack for about 15 seconds. The tinny, electrified quack, quack, quack amused me, and I felt it would amuse the dogs.

I picked up my drugs, paid my supplier, and carried the drugs and toys out in a large sack. When I walked into the house, it was canine Christmas; Em Claus began dispensing toys amongst the pack, and great frivolity ensued. Although there was a bit of squabbling—Pathetic Bob ripped the green frog out of Zipper’s mouth, and Paco whined until Sophie gave him the yellow and blue snake—everything soon settled down. Everyone had a present with plenty more left over. The duck lay in the corner by the couch unnoticed, until Lily pounced on it. The force of her body landing on the duck’s midsection triggered a burst of quacking that took the dogs by surprise. They all froze. Then, all of them except Ed the basset hound ran away.

Of all the dogs that live here, Ed is undoubtedly the most goofy, fun-loving member of the pack, and when he heard the quacking, he went over to check out the duck…and fell in love. He bit it, it quacked at him, and he laughed. He did his basset dance, picked up the duck and discovered with just the right amount of pressure from his jaws, he could make the duck talk to him. He was in Ed nirvana. I was highly amused.

It is now a week later, and I am not amused anymore. Ed’s duck is driving me insane. He must have it at night when he sleeps with us on the bed; quack, quack, quack at two in the morning kills brain cells. I tried hiding it, but his whining was worse than the quacking. When I’m in my office trying to write, Ed and his duck are in there with me. Quacking does not inspire literary greatness. I took the battery out of Ed’s duck and rendered it mute, but Ed fell into a deep depression, and I simply could not bear to see him so sad.

Ed’s duck has new batteries installed in it, and whenever I try to sleep or write, I pour hot wax in my ear.