by Ross Voorhees

Created on: February 19, 2009

I have many fond childhood memories, including a few picnics in the bright sunshine by a small pond that culminated in feeding a few scraps to the local ducks, which I found highly amusing and quite idyllic.

In a recent attempt to revisit that time, I bought a loaf of bread and parked next to the river where ducks and geese often gathered. I expected an orderly, quiet moment of reflective peace as gracious, dignified waterfowl accepted my generous offering. What I quickly came to realize was this:

The prevalence of graphic video games has caused a dramatic rise in violence in the Duck community. Or something.

It began innocently enough, although in retrospect I should have seen what was coming when the first pseudo-duck participant eyed the single loaf I carried, then fixed me with a glare that said, "If that's all you've brought, you will be quite sorry, I assure you." But of course, I mistook the natural, small upturn at the corners of his beak as a smile, and completely missed the obvious.

As I tossed little torn off bits to my "Little Buddy", his cute little ducksy quacks signalled some sort of internal "Hey, we've got a live one here" radar in every waterfowl within a 12 mile radius, for within the space of looking down to grab the next slice of bread from the sack and looking back up, I had somehow been magically transported to a Hitchcockian, Tippy Hedronish moment where time itself stopped. I looked up to discover that I was completely surrounded by hundreds of ducks, geese, sparrows, robins, crows, seagulls, and any other species and/or subspecies of avian life ever catalogued by man. I swear I even saw a couple of Dodo's mixed in there, for heaven's sake.

A quick aside: If you happen to be a bird watcher, let me save you the trouble of spending days on end gazing through a pair of binoculars trying to catch a glimpse of that rare species of bird which would cap off your career. Simply throw a few pieces of bread to your local waterfowl, and you will get to meet that trophy bird up close and personal. I cannot, however, guarantee that you will live to tell about it.

Anyway, all manner of beady black eyes regarded my next move, and suddenly I had a much deeper appreciation for Edgar Allen Poe's, The Raven. I slowly, VERY slowly swiveled around to judge the distance between myself and my car, and audibly gulped as I realized that my retreat had effectively been cut off not only by the ducks, geese, and other supposed bird-like creatures, but by their "offerings"

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