No Ducking Way

An avulsion fracture is what the orthopedic surgeon in the city called it. That’s when bone fragments detach as a result of tendons or ligaments pulling away from the bone. Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as the nurse practitioner at the hometown urgent care had told us the day before. We expected a full leg cast or even surgery, but my wife is a tough gal. The doctor’s prescribed treatment for her knee injury was only two weeks of no weight followed by light duty for a few more weeks after that.

It was a worrisome injury for a couple of days over the weekend before we got the better-than-expected news, but now that we know it isn’t as serious as first thought, I’m happy to remind Jessica where she went wrong every time she complains about the pain in her knee.

“You know what?” I ask her with full knowledge that she does.

“Yes! I know... Don’t buy ducks.”

“That’s right. Don’t buy ducks,” I confirmed her response.

I realize that requires explanation, so let me do that now. We live in an historic home on a 30-acre farm in the Appalachian foothills. Rather it was a 30-acre farm that we acquired less than a year ago and we don’t have what we need at the moment to begin farming though that is the plan. There is much preparation that needs to be done including equipment that needs to be purchased, fences that need built, land that needs tended to and infrastructure that needs mended before our dreams of administering a farm can be fulfilled. Part of that dream certainly does include owning a few farm animals and especially ducks and chickens, though we are not ready for that right now.

“Not ready for that now,” is exactly what I said to my wife on those several occasions this spring when we saw the cute fuzzy chicks and ducklings in the nearby farm stores while we searched for other materials. We need to take care of other priorities first and one day we’ll have ducks and chickens and it will be nice to have our own egg production. A couple of weeks ago as we walked around our pond with our dogs, Jessica reiterated that we needed ducks for the pond.

“Maybe we will get some ducks,” was my response to her revelation, meaning maybe some wild ducks will find our pond inviting and set up residence. But that isn’t how she took it.

Jessica is off early on Fridays, and she decided to do what wives do when they aren’t working, she went shopping. While I still slaved away at my office, from the farm store about a mile from our home, she sends me a picture of chicks and ducks and says she’s going to get two.

Of course I know we have had this discussion as early as the week before, so I gather she is only trying to push my buttons as she is oft to do when she is being silly.

“What the heck do you plan to do with them,” I asked in my message, clearly not in support of such a ridiculous idea.

“Love them and Pet them,” she texted back for which I responded with, “and call them George.”

I get a “Yes” with smiley face in return.

Later, traveling down the highway over my truck’s hands-free connection, I call my lovely wife to tell her I’m finally on my way, when I hear chirps in the background.

“WHAT DID YOU DO!” I bellow into the truck’s microphone just as I merge onto the short piece of interstate on my drive home.

“What,” she asked innocently.

“What was that noise?”

“What noise,” she blocked every question with a question.

“SWEETIE...” I yelled, demanding she stop playing games.

There was no response from the other end and we were both listening to dead air for several seconds until she finally broke the silence with a sweetly elongated, “hhhi!”

“We’ll talk when I get home,” I said and hung up the phone.

She met me in the garage after I backed the truck into place. Her shoulders were shrugged and her head was tilted with a pursed-lipped smile across her face looking at me as she rocked back and forth like an 8-year-old girl that just stole a cookie from the cookie jar.

All I had to do was look in her direction and she started tweeting like a canary.

“They were so cute, and when I told the guy we had a pond he said, ‘well there ya go,’ and they were only six bucks – well, plus the light and the feed and the electrolytes... They were only about 40 bucks.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t want any (rhymes with ducking) ducks right now. Are you not paying attention?”

At this point in the story, you are probably thinking I’m an abusive husband and I went Tonya Harding on my wife breaking her kneecap. That IS NOT what happened. I was angry for sure, but I just wanted to change out of my work clothes and take a few minutes to mull over what this new responsibility was going to mean for us and decide how to handle it. I didn’t want to hear excuses or explanations about how cute these ducklings were.

“Don’t you want to see them,” she asked.

“No, I don’t,” I responded walking through the door to the kitchen and slamming it behind me.

Well, Jessica was certain that when I saw the cute little fluff balls, I couldn’t resist, and it would soften my resolve. If I wouldn’t go with her to see the ducklings, she would bring the ducklings to me.

Jessica had stowed away the ducks in a wire kennel, on a high shelf in our laundry room safely away from the dogs’ reach. As I’ve previously mentioned, my wife is a tough gal, and that is a good thing because she is also a klutz. She had to climb a two-and-a-half-foot folding stool to reach the offending creatures but as she pulled the cage from the perch where she placed it, she suddenly forgot she was standing on a stool until she stepped and the floor wasn’t there. She tumbled to the tile floor, landing on her knee with caged ducklings, heat lamp, electrolyte water, food and bedding soiled in duck poo crashing down on top of her.

(RELAX! The ducks are fine.)

Responding to the crash, I ran into the laundry room to see Jessica sobbing on the floor holding her knee with food, water, glass, wood shavings and duck feces scattered all around her and the ducks chirping wildly in a toppled cage. I scooped her up, helped her clean up the mess then she introduced me to Lena and Liza.

My wife undoubtedly hurt herself for real, and fortunately not as bad as we thought, but in an unplanned strategic turn of events, Jessica was able to turn my anger and frustration into genuine concern for her. As for Lena and Liza, they now live in a Jacuzzi tub in our guest bathroom.