Thoughts

I was highly entertained yesterday while at lunch with my parents. Our family is very close and I am comfortable saying that it is always entertaining when we are together, but yesterday was different. They told me a story that started with my mom asking if my dad had yet told me about the noises he heard coming from the basement at 6:15AM Saturday.

My immediate feeling was one of shock and terror. What could possibly have happened? Are they ok? ...Oh, right, they are both sitting here with me and in fine spirits. If anything had gone wrong, I would surely have heard about it before now. Dad took the reigns and led me through the details of his story.

Before heading down to the exercise room for his Saturday morning work-out he went to the computer to do who knows what. While sitting at the computer he hears a loud crash and then silence. He pauses and remains silent, listening. A few minutes pass and he thinks that something must have fallen over and he has no cause for concern. And then a crash, louder and longer than before. Something is afoot.

He stands at the top of the stairway leading to the basement and turns on the light. Again he waits, listening. And he hears something walking! Alarmed and confused all at the same time while a few moments pass and he sees the perpetrator. Into the guest room walks a duck. Yes, a duck.

The duck came back out of the guest room, walked into the laundry room, then back into the hallway and sat down. The animal was safely caught and released.

The only explanation was that the duck must have come in through the chimney downstairs in the bar area as the flue was found open. There has been no determination of whether the flue was open prior or if the duck opened the flue by landing on it after falling into the chimney. The sound, by the way, was the duck flying into the blinds on the windows as he attempted to free himself.

Who says there is no excitement in the lives of empty-nesters?!