Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
his parents took him and his sisters to the most amazing place in the world at that time, Disneyland (the thought of going to that mystical land would make any child scream and faint, probably because video games were not invented yet), and of the many, many things that captured his imagination and memory that far-away sunny day in Southern California, of all the magical things that kids think about and wish for, of all the interesting things that get wedged down into a child's mind, the thing he remembers the most vividly, even more vividly than sitting in Grandpa Medvee's lap as they passed beneath the talking skull on the Pirate's of the Caribbean boat cruise; the thing he remembers best is the ducks.
Not Donald Duck, even though chances are that Dougie did bump into Donald on that long ago day.It was all the ducks in the lake. They quacked at you. When you were munching on popcorn, they quacked at you. I mean they got this look in their bulbous black eyes, and there was this certain bend to their bright yellow-orange bills, I mean they were DEMANDING that you feed them. And these were beautiful ducks. Possibly they were robotronic ducks created by sick imagineers to stimulate popcorn sales at Disneyland, but these ducks were perfect, white, glistening in the sun, and they even came up out of the water and followed you a short distance in their demands for popcorn.More than anything else, of all the many colorful wonders offered at Disneyland, Dougie wanted a duck. He couldn't think of a better souvenir to take home with him, to be his buddy, his friend, so much better than the silly hat with round ear his Grandma bought him (even at two years of age, a yarmulke with flat black circles attached just ain't that impressive; the Donald Duck hats were worse, because what in the world was that bill doing way up on top of the head like that, that was a fairly malformed duck when you thought about it, and even two-year-olds think such thoughts).Employing the mere seeds of his developing strategic mind, Dougie tossed popcorn at first far out, and then he slowly brought the ducks closer, and closer, until he almost had one fat duck completely out of the water (the artificial duck creature was stretching its too-bright orange webbed flipper foot-like thing back so that the tip of what passed for a toe was merely puncturing the skin of the water), and reaching out his hand with the popcorn prize dangling, Dougie and the robot duck were only an inch apart.Let it go, the duck said with its eyes, glaring at the delectable piece of popcorn. Come a little closer, Dougie replied with his big dark eyes. And there they were, robot duck and enterprising toddler, locked in a battle of intense wills. The robot duck's programming demanded: stimulate popcorn sales, stimulate popcorn sales. And Dougie's programming demanded: gimme, gimme, gimme.Finally, the duck's imagineer coding could take it no longer. The duck leaped forward for the popcorn.Dougie's toddler coding could take it no longer. He leaped forward for the duck.Unfortunately, a duck's coordination, even a bizarrely perfect robotronic duck at Disneyland, far surpasses the coordination of a too-skinny toddler.Dougie's fingers were on the glowing white feathers, and the duck went berserk. It switched into insane quack mode, producing an horrific escalated triple-time quack which sounds far closer to wackwackwack than quack. And as the duck went into full reverse, all the other ducks, perhaps thirty-two of them, came forward. Their eyebrows, if ducks have eyebrows (Dougie remembers them as having eyebrows), all shot down in angry glower mode. The thirty-two ducks were having none of this. Back off now, skinny toddler boy, the lights flashing in their eyes warned.The propensity for never giving up was strong even at two years of age, and Dougie was not going to allow his duck to escape, even surrounded by thirty-two angry robot ducks. He went after the retreating duck, leaving the firm concrete footing that is Disney ground, and he ran out on the surface of the too-perfect Disney lake.Then he went headfirst into the lake, missing the robotronic duck by thirty-two miles.He couldn't leave well enough alone. I mean come on, a first trip to Disneyland with his parents AND his grandparents, cotton candy and candy apples and popcorn and wild toad rides and spinning teacups and big scary cartoon characters come to life, and Dougie had to fall in the lake.His Grandpa Medvee was there and snatched Dougie up out of the waters (Dougie had seen the sea serpent earlier, the one with the crazy, rolling eyes, at the end of the submarine ride, and he was sure the beast was close, he could actually feel it drawing near inches away beneath the green-blue waters)."For crying out loud!" Grandpa shouted."Dadgummit!" Dada joined in.And the two hostile alpha males prepared to give the two-year-old a threshing, a tanning on each side of the hide, and a few assorted smacks and whacks, all for good child discipline, spare the rod and spoil the two-year-old and all that. But Mama and Grandma intervened, and they cooed and laughed and dried Dougie off (and discovered he'd already been wet before he went into the lake).And Dougie did what he was best at. He cried. He cried for the state of the world and the audacity or robotronic ducks and popcorn spilled everywhere and near-misses with sea serpents. What a world, what a world, what's a two-year-old to think?All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
