Tesla Delacroix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, is not really a lot of help to the keeper as he—the keeper, tries to formulate a meaningful message to the duck that he ate in dining with Phyllis at Otto’s on a recent night. The keeper, while generally comfortable with being at the top of the predator arrangement, may have been conditioned by driving past flocks of gulls and geese on the way to Ottos.
In any case, something triggered thoughts of how the keeper and his predatory ilk consume birds as casually as they eat popcorn. It was a short step from this birdy generalization to the personalization of the duck that was delivered by the waitress at Ottos; and once he got past his usual—“I’ve bought several cars for what this meal is costing,” the keeper thought it appropriate to message the duck before he settled in to eat it: “So, duck, we meet here at Ottos in roles decided by nature, and if those roles had been reversed and I were about to be eaten by a duck, I would hope for the peaceful acceptance you seem to display. I hope you had a fulfilling duck life replete with enjoyable quacking and waddling to interesting places; and I want you to know that you will be riding home with Phyllis and me in a ‘to-go’ box, since you are too much duck for just this one get-together. So, duck, you will be ending up as what is called a ‘left-over’ which is an honorable thing to be, and something I and my age group can identify with: rather than ‘left-over,’ however we prefer to call it ‘extreme maturity.’ Goodbye, duck, it’s been good to gnaw you.”
