"Desperate ducks commit desperate acts!" - Howard, Howard The Duck

 

When I was out hiking with Pugsley and The Boy, we happened upon Paris Hilton! She didn’t have much to say, but you could tell that whole tanning thing was working out for her. Then she ate a small dog.

Sorry, Internet. I took last week off.

Let me explain – I wasn’t out with another Internet. I was just too tired to make it. Last Saturday I went Cub Scout camping. The Mrs. generally doesn’t let me take Pugsley on overnight camping trips – The Mrs. is generally concerned that I will have forgotten I brought two boys, and only bring one home. That would be an evening of explaining. Normally The Mrs. forgets that stuff the next day, so I figure I’d only be in trouble for the night.

Anyhow, The Boy, Pugsley, and I left late, and had to put up our tent just as dusk was doing whatever it is that dusk does. Night falls, morning breaks, but dusk? I think it creeps up on you, unannounced, like Arbor Day. Or Christmas.

We finally managed to get the tent up, the sleeping bags in, and had hot dogs that were raw on the inside and burned on the outside to the consistency of Rosanne Barr’s thighs after she ran a marathon. Wearing corduroy. The Boy and Pugsley didn’t seem to notice – camping drastically lowers your quality standards as it relates to food. I myself once ate my shoe on a picnic, just because it looked mildly appetizing.

That night we settled into our bedrolls and slept soundly. Except for the fighting, the whining, and the 1:30AM run to the bathroom with a rather panicked Pugsley (just had to go a lot, like most three-year-olds he’s not used to walking a quarter-mile to go to the bathroom).

The next morning we had a stellar breakfast of badly burned (but yet teasingly raw in the middle) pancakes. Non-stick is really not a guarantee, more of a tantalizing promise. Pugsley ate a bite or two, and then indicated that he would eat no more. I got to pull my “Dad” line out – “It’s a long time until lunch, son.”

Strangely, at home it’s NEVER a long time until lunch, because it’s always a short walk to the pantry, filled with Snacky-Cakes® that can be pilfered and Oreos™ that can be absconded with. This morning was different, however, since the morning Cub Scout program included Orienteering – which involves a LOT of walking with a compass. Since The Boy was navigating, I was concerned that we might actually leave Texas at some point, and end up slightly off course in, say, Nebraska. But his aim was (pretty) true, except for the time when he wanted to take us 180° off course (that’s like 560π° off course in metric). We had a knee-slapper of a conversation about the Sumerians picking a weird number like 360° in a circle, and then Pugsley came up lame with a blister on his big left toe.

Oh, sure, I thought about doing the Darwinian thing and making him catch up or get lost, but then the spectre of a night spent explaining how I was just conducting a eugenics experiment with our youngest son descended on me. I then decided to do the Dad-thing and plop him up on my shoulders and carry his heiney around that way. He lovingly patted and petted my jowls, stretching them like they were a part of Jim Carrey’s face.

Upon dismount, Pugsley then began to make bleating sounds, pointing at the pain that was in his Snacky-Cake©-free stomach. I said to him, “For the first time in your life, Pugsley, you might be mildly hungry. Eat lunch. In two hours.”

We finally made it back to the tent, did some more hiking, and finally settled down for a (mostly) fight free night, if you don’t count the incident at 3AM when Pugsley pushed The Boy off of the air mattress and I had to rearrange children. In a tent. At 3AM.

So, this week we had a good week. The biggest thing we did was go on a picnic. We’d hit Target™ beforehand, so everyone had picked something to eat. I picked some Target© fried chicken, and we grabbed a table at a local park.

Immediately the ducks began to congregate near our table, begging for bread crumbs.

Internet, I admit that I had a truly horrible and despicable thought.

I would feed chicken to the ducks, making them nearly cannibals. Of course the ramifications of this immediately ran like a fever-dream through my head: wave after wave of bird-eating ducks finally realizing how good meat tastes spreading throughout the country, finally turning on themselves in an orgy of zombie avian genocide.

The next day I was driving with the family in the car. I said to The Mrs., “You know, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I thought about feeding some of my chicken to the ducks the other day. That would almost make them cannibals.”

The Mrs. nonchalantly replied, “Yeah, me too.”

Sometimes you find the right person. Then you marry her. Then you don’t lose your kids camping. Then you find out that you’re both similarly evil.

Ain’t life grand?