Playing Fowl

BY TRACY BECKERMAN

When you buy a new house, you’re not just getting the house; you are also getting someone else’s taste in tile, paint and wallpaper. In some cases, the previous owner may have had an unusual preference for a particular theme, which may not be exactly your taste, and may, in fact, be an overabundance of something like...

Ducks.

Lots of ducks. There were ducks everywhere. Duck tiles, duck wallpaper, duck faucets and duck toilet paper holders. There were mallards in the kitchen, Muscovies in the master bath and mandarins in the hallways. There were so many ducks of so many types in almost every room that I was actually nervous to open doors, in fear that an actual duck may be wandering around like he owned the place, which, after looking at the house, certainly could be the case.

“What the duck?” I said to my husband as we really looked around for the first time as the new homeowners. We’d done our inspections, of course, but most of our interactions had been online because the house was far away. We hadn’t really been aware of the excessive duckiness of the house until just now.

“Did you see all these ducks in the pictures of the house?” he asked.

“I don’t think they included the duckiest rooms,” I said.

“Which room doesn’t have ducks?”

“The front hall closet, I believe,” I replied.

I looked out the window to take a break from all the ducks and that’s when I saw... more ducks! There were ducks lolling on the lawn and ducks cavorting on the deck. Everywhere I looked, I saw ducks. And that’s when it hit me...

I had a duck curse.

I realized it probably started when I was a kid. One day I innocently quacked at a duck in a neighbor’s pool. I’m not sure what I said in duck language but apparently it wasn’t good because the duck literally chased me up a tree.

I wondered: Was quacking at a duck really so bad, or had I run afowl of a duck in a previous life? Either way, it was clear I needed a duck intervention before something more ducked up happened to me or the people I loved.

“I’m really sorry, honey,” I said. “It’s my fault we have duck issues. I have a duck curse.”

He rolled his eyes.

“No, it’s true,” I insisted. “I’m not sure how it happened, but it seems that I have been cursed with a lifetime of ducks.”

“Well, that’s just ducky,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

“First thing tomorrow, I’m going to find someone to remove the curse.”

The next day I looked online and found a woman who could remove my

Of course, if you happen to live in the Southern Hemisphere where seasons are reversed from those north of the equator, our planet’s nearest point to the sun does occur during summertime. But that’s a story for another time.

Follow Dennis Mammana at facebook/dennismammana.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS.COM duck curse over Zoom for a hefty fee. She chanted at me, waved some sage at a rubber ducky, and then announced that I was curse-free.

The next morning, I got up and looked out the window.

The ducks were gone.

I woke my husband. “Great news honey, the ducks are gone! The curse has been lifted.”

“Well, mine hasn’t,” he said, sitting up.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes.

“You’re still here.”

Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble,” available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www. tracybeckerman.com.

COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS