Make Way For Crazy Mother of Five

A couple years ago, a bird flew through the driver's side window (while I was driving!), smacked my head and fell squeaking and squawking onto my lap. Amid my screams and flying feathers the bird had the poop scared out of him. Literally.

Thankfully, I didn't crash.

Do these things happen to other people?

How about tonight when I was stopped at a stoplight and there were ducks crossing the street. Ducks. A mother duck and four babies. Just like the book Make Way for Ducklings.

Inasmuch as Southern California is probably the most hostile environment for wildlife--the urban sprawl is about as bad as it gets---seeing ducks is a noteworthy thing.

I turned down the street to follow the ducks, inching along reeeeeally slow, using my car as a shield to protect them from oncoming vehicles. And I was talking to them like this:

"Mommy Ducky, are you lost? Here, ducky, ducky. Come here and I'll help you!"

Mother duck kept glancing at me suspiciously and the one time I tried to intervene/help, the babies started freaking out.

So I got back in the car and kept following them. Where could they possibly be headed? There were no ponds, no water, no estuary of any kind. They were just waddling along the asphalt, wearing their little webbed feet to shreds, I was sure.

I'm creeping down this residential street and flagging down neighbors and jumping in and out of my car, polling the people I pass for directions to the nearest pond, wondering if I should just adopt the whole brood--a baby pool in our back yard, that'd work! And then we could have have fresh eggs! Yeah! Fresh eggs!

And then realizing, oh wait, ducks don't lay eggs. Chickens do. Heh.

I'm all sweaty, my sunglasses have fogged up and I finally call Matt.

"I mean, they're all alone and they're just wandering and what should I do----?"

There's a long pause on the other end wherein I hear two babies hollering and over that, CNN.

Finally, the husband speaks, "Uh...it's called wildlife. That means...they're wild."

I guess that means they won't answer to here, ducky, ducky?

"Leave 'em alone and come home," he says.

OK, then.

Regretfully, I begin to drive away. But in my rearview mirror, I see a mommy running out into the street. She's carrying her baby and she's trotting after the ducks.

See, I'm not the only crazy one.