DUCKS

I don't know if I have passed this on, yet.

We were all on the way home from Virginia Beach--I was behind the wheel of the 2010 Chevy Malibu--and the weather had kicked up, a bit, in the lovely curvy and hilly state of West Virginia. I was driving down some six-lane highway (seperated by the grassy median) and, as I angled the vehicle to the right and down (yet another) a hill, I noticed something on the shoulder of the far-left lane, the lane in which I had taken up residence. Must be another blown-out tire, I thought to myself. Yes. Yes, but then the tire began to move to its left...smack-dab in my lane. As I cruised along at 75 miles an hour, I soon saw that the tire was not a tire.

It was, in fact, a family of ducks. Four ducklings and a mother duck.

I was going 75 miles an hour. I tried to brake and move to my right, but that didn't work. The pavement was damp and the ducks were headed exactly to the spot that I'd swerve. It's a moot point, anyway. Once I depressed the brake, the physics took over: 75 miles an hour, downhill--steep grade--angled to the right as it were; the physics told the rear end of the car to shimmy to the left. I gave up on that idea. I wasn't about to flip down the highway thirty-two times and have us all end up (dead) in a fiery crash. Was not going to happen. So I let off the brake and said a quick prayer for the ducks.

The last three ducklings said good-bye to this world. (I like to think that they are doing their "duck-dives" in Duck Heaven, now.) There was not even a thump-thump-thump (obviously) when I ran 'em down. No...just, when I shot a glance in the rear-view mirror, I actually some feathers flying in the air and the Mother duck seemingly taking to the air. Apparently, the mom duck had had enough of her bird-brained attempt to cross the six-lane super-highway and had decided that the last duckling was not worth being Malibu-ed herself.

Nice mom, huh?

Why she even wanted to flirt with the Devil is another matter all together. Maybe she had a duck drug problem? Maybe she had fallen in with the quick mallards? Who knows. I personally think--and events bore this out--the idea was a bad one.

"What was that?!" said Naomi breathlessly from the backseat, snapped awake.

"Nothi--" I said.

"Ducks!" said Meagan, simultaneously. "A mother duck and her four ducklings!"

"Adam?!" said Naomi. "Why couldn't you have missed them?!"

Meagan answered her daughter why (and she completely understood), and I was left to drive in somewhat-blessed silence, saying a repetitive silent prayer to the duck-world: Sorry.

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