Donald, stupid name for a duck

We used to have a mallard duck, and since duck-naming was not at the apex of any of our  to do lists, he became known as "Donald".  I know, I know, you are probably wondering where my creative juices were when it came time to name the duck.  All I have to say to that is, "What creative juices?"

I am sure that this little story would be better if the duck's name was say, "Count Quackula",  "Don Mallardo", "Duckzilla", or even something as lame as "Lemuel".  Any of these would spice this up considerably, so, if you feel the need, go ahead and substitute the name "Donald" for anything you feel comfortable with.  I apologize for the "void of creativity" that surrounded my family during this exciting duck-purchasing era.

Now that I am reminiscing about Donald, I remember that we actually had two ducks named Donald in our prolific water fowl journey into madness.  The first one was not as exciting as the second one, so I want you to know that from here on out, I am specifically speaking of Donald #2.

Ok, now that all of the legal crap is out of the way, we can get on with it.

I don't know what year it was.  I think it was sometime in the late 80's.  Anyway, my mother brought home 4 ducks from the duck store  one day and my sisters and I were very excited.  Actually, I have no idea where she got them, so lets leave it at "the duck store."  These baby ducks are very adorable, in a small, fuzzy, crap-machine sort of way.  Three of the ducks were female, and one was male.

Before you slow-witted ones can ask, yes, the male duck was Donald.

Ok, this is already taking too long, holy shit, look at all that crap.  I have not even really started telling you about the duck, and I have filled up almost a whole page.  Damn, I really need to take a conciseness class (maybe, an English class also).

Donald was a happy duck.  He was king shit of our back yard.  He had his own duck pond, and three lovely she-ducks to have his way with whenever he wanted.  Yes, the early years were kind to Donald, but they would not last.  After a while, the girl ducks mysteriously disappeared.  Either, they got fed up with having to share their man-duck, and flew away, or they were abduckted (I know, cheesy, but I could not resist) by aliens in the night.  I am sure that they could have been eaten by some animal, but then, Donald would have been eaten also, so I am going to go with alien abducktion.

In the years after the she-ducks were gone, Donald became a lonely and crotchety mallard.  He did not spend that much time in the pond anymore, and he no longer was able to satisfy his "needs" now that his harem was gone, and it is damn hard to masturbate with a webbed foot.  Everything seemed lost until the day we got a goat.  The goat came from a neighbor to help keep down the weeds in the backyard.  We named the goat "Billy" (I know, it sucks, shut up.  For your information, he was named after Billy Joel).  At first, the goat and the duck paid no attention to one another, but it did not take them long to start hanging together.  Every time I looked outside, I would see Donald and Billy standing together in the back yard.  Billy would be eating, and Donald would be there quacking up a storm, apparently keeping Billy company.

Things went on like this for a long time, at least for a couple of years.  One day, I had some friends over, and I wanted to show them the duck and goat.  I went out in the back yard, and Donald and Billy were not in site.  I went into the shed, where they sometimes go to get out of the rain, and found Billy laying down on his side (not normal for a goat) with Donald quacking the saddest song of mourning I have ever heard from a duck (and, I assure you, I have heard many).  I nudged Billy with my shoe but he would not move.  I reached down and patted him on the neck and found, that he was very stiff.  Sometime that day, Billy had passed on into that crazy goat afterlife.  This was a difficult thing to deal with.  I was rather fond of Billy.  I had no idea how old he was, but I know he was not young when we got him.  I comforted myself with knowing that he had a full goat life.  He was able to eat anything he wanted in the backyard, and he had a true friend in Donald.  How many goats can say that?  I can honestly tell you that the answer to that would be zero.

Warning: The previous sentence may not be true.

Ok, I know, this little article is not turning out to be very witty, or entertaining.  I promise, that it might get interesting if you keep reading.

Back to Donald....

As you can imagine, Donald was not a well duck after Billy died.  He started suffering from a strange, duck psychosis.  He stopped swimming in his pond again and used all his free non-swimming time for chasing and biting the female humans that came near him.  Donald used to wait in the bushes near our front door waiting for my sisters, or my mom to get home.  Once they got out of the car, he would rush over and start biting them on the ankles.  Of course, my mom and sisters would run for it, but he would chase them until they got into the house.  He never did any real damage to my female family members, but he always had a crazy, satisfied smile on his beak when he chased them.

Donald kept up the women chasing for a while, and then I suppose he got bored because he started chasing our dog Dudley.  Donald was much bigger than Dudley and would pick on him unmercifully.  Donald used to chase Dudley around the yard and when Donald caught up with Dudley, he would grab a hold of Dudley's neck with his beak, and spray duck shit all over his back.  I am not sure why Donald did this, and if you read the Dudley story, you would know that Dudley was a white dog.  If Dudley was a different color, say green, being sprayed with duck shit would not be as big a deal.

Obviously, my family members and I were not to keen on getting in the middle of canine-waterfowl relations, so we just let them be.  I made my sisters give Dudley a bath when these things happened, so I was fine with the whole thing.  Of course, I would separate Donald and Dudley if I saw imminent duck-shit sprayage.  Donald, being ever so resourceful, quickly learned to give Dudley the poop-shower when no one was around.
 

After many years, Donald finally died.  We found him one day near the hot tub.  We was half eaten, with a crazed smile on his beak.  I think he tired to "fecal-fountain" a raccoon.  We will never know for sure.  Duck homicides just don't pique the interest of the local constable like they used to.

Donald, I did not get to tell you this before you were murdered, so I will tell you now...

"Sorry about naming you Donald, and not something really cool like "Quacktastic"."