Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Decoy Duckess Reigns

Our great blog friend, Teri of "Here's To Happy Women" fame wrote an essay on June 16, 2006, titled, " If It Looks Like a Duck". It is a great essay and very insightful in the area of human relations. Go to her site and read her terrific post. At the time, I made a comment on her blog, which I have copied in this post..(I'm going to ask her if that is okay--- or even legal) So you will understand where I am heading with this whole thing --- I will tell you that my comment on her blog was just the beginning of my new insight into the personage of my "decoy duckess". The thought to be continued on to other side of my comment--- see you there.
I said..."Oh, my goodness --- I just love you! Metaphorically speaking.... I am a lucky duck to have found your nest here in the blogosphere.We used to have a horse farm with a one acre pond. There were three ducks, who had somehow made reservations for our pond while en route to and from warmer climes. There were two males and one female. We called them "the pair and a spare". The nesting couple kept this quack around, sort of riding shotgun for them, but if he ever got too near the duckess.....Look out Daffy! They always arrived and left as a trio...perhaps the spare was hoping for a chance to become a lucky duck, if the head duck took a dive.I personally have a relative "decoy duckess", who has been fowling up my life for years. She flies freely, soaring into space, while somehow keeping a webbed foot firmly planted on my neck. I know she is a decoy, because she is covered with peacock feathers. Your great post has given me the courage to quietly rub catnip all over her nest and swim away with my beautiful drake, her brother."
Since I have told you that my "decoy duckess" is my husband's sister, you can figure out that she has been involved in my pond for most of my life. Being a peacock, she preened her feathers at the country club pool and quickly learned the right way to do everything in the socially correct suburbs. My drake and I were lucky to find enough corn scattered around to keep us from starving to death. The duckess and her foie gras cygnet lived in the manner of the upper swan strata, because their first homes and cars were paid for by his swan parents. He was an only child and my drake had been the only other egg in her family's nest. I so admired her and wanted to emulate her flight patterns, but we were still in the nest while she was soaring aloft with the country club set. They had hatched three lovely ducklings and in due time, three of our eggs hatched into splendid little yellow ducklings. My decoy duckess proudly wore her peacock feathers, cooked gourmet grains and was seen at all the best nests around the private watering holes. She wanted to direct our paths into her webbed footsteps, but unfortunately I was chicken to try following this peacock in her fowl ways.
At this time, I will stop with the duck doo doo and try to explain how her high flying ways have ruined the relationship we could have had for all these years. My peacock has so much talent in all areas that it is easy to understand why I suffered by comparison. When my children were little, she offered to take care of them for over a week when we were given a trip to New York City by my husband's company. Our oldest had just turned two and the youngest was only six weeks old, but she calmly took care of them and her own three older children with one wing tied behind her back. She invited us to her house for many holiday dinners and was always very organized. The problem was that during the course of conversation, she always knew everything about every subject. Even if she were dead wrong and you knew how wrong she was, she still managed to treat your opinion as though you were a blithering idiot. I dreaded phone calls, because I would become uncomfortable with dead spots in the conversation and fill the void with silly inanities. My husband's father was an alcoholic, but she turned a blind eye to the problems it created. If my beautiful drake tried to discuss the problems with his sister --- she would pull her peacock feathers over her head and deny anything was wrong in the family. We, however, lived nearby and had the responsibility of taking care of any problems that arose. She and her family moved back to our city and still she denied any alcohol related problems, even though Dad would come home at night and fall down in his front yard --- dead drunk after having driven four or five miles home. At the end of his life, I had to travel twenty miles every day or two to do some nursing treatments that were nothing extraordinary for me, but would have caused him to wait at the local hospital for hours in the emergency room for a couple of simple treatments. During this time, she and her husband decided that we (the two couples) should take turns living at the parents place for a week at a time. Who? We had a horse farm to care for and my husband had a full time job. We suggested that they arrange for medical assistance. When she reported back about the available help; this is what she said, "We can get an aide or an LPN, because we don't need a real nurse." I am an LPN! At the time, I was working coronary, doing my own meds, I.V.'s , assessments and reports. What did she think an LPN was? One Sunday afternoon, she called from Dad's house and said that she thought he was dying. My drake said, "We'll be right down." She replied, "Oh, you don't have to come." To which, he said, "He's my father, too." I took my nursing supplies and we drove to his little town. When we arrived, he was moaning in pain and had wet himself, but was not conscious enough to take anything by mouth for the pain. Hospice had been called, but had not responded to the decoy duckess' calls and she hadn't the slightest idea of how to get him cleaned up and dry. For once, I pulled my neck from under her webbed foot and called his physician. After telling him that I was a nurse (lowly LPN) with a medication license, the doctor told me to go to the local hospital and they would give me I.M. medication. They gave me seven vials of morphine, the syringes, needles and even the alcohol swabs. I gave him the first injection and then my husband and I cleaned him up and changed his bed with blue under pads, draw sheets and a strategically placed urinal. We sat on the floor on each side of his bed for about four hours and then gave the second injection. He died peacefully, pain free and dry, because I AM A NURSE!
Dad had appointed the peacock's husband as executor of his estate and everything that my guy had wanted as a keepsake from his Dad, Mom and grandparents was taken by the decoy duckess. Her husband even had the nerve to take an executor's fee.
Jump ahead about ten years. We moved from our farm to a beautiful, private country club and were finally feeling that we were living in a manner suitable to the peacock's status. After five years in a condo on the fifth tee box, she and her husband moved to a condo on the fourth green. They joined the club and instantly became social ducks in the club's pond. We have continued to use the club for golf and entertaining, but dang! They do it bigger and better.
Retirement from the world of work and great income caused this quacker and her drake to tender our resignation from the world of the rich and famous, only to discover that our city is economically depressed and our club would be unable to pay back our stock certificate for many years. We decided to approach the board of directors with a deal they couldn't refuse. Would they allow us to play out our stock instead of paying monthly dues and we would never ask them to repay our $10,000. investment? The lady who takes care of things in the financial area just loves my friendly drake and she approached the board on our behalf and it is a done deal. Now, we just have to pay the locker fees, driving range fees, putting green fees, caddy shack fees, cart fees and eat $1200.00 worth of food in the dining room. Well, guess who has followed us to Florida and is living half an hour away on an executive golf course? So, since they are now residents of Florida, they want their stock money back or want to play our club as out of state residents. When informed that they cannot be out of state members as long as they own a condo on the course, they raised the cry of "Fowl" and brought up our special deal. It almost cost us this coming summer of membership and the remainder of our stock certificate,but they just don't get it. Why should that bother us?
We arrive at Easter Sunday and an invitation to join them here in Florida with their three fifty something children and their families. Dinner was lovely (I already told you she does everything perfectly) and we sat and talked with their ducklings while the Master's Golf Tournament finished. I was chatting with her daughter-in-law about some unusual medical things and we mentioned that most heart patients take a baby aspirin every day. I brought up that I had an unusual condition called Sampter's Triad, which prevents me from ever taking aspirin or any non-steroidal medications, since developing an allergy related to asthma. I have since been desensitised to aspirin by an allergist, so I must take one every morning and every night to keep the allergy at bay. I thought the daughter-in-law might be interested, since she works in a coronary unit and it is a pretty rare deal. My peacock turned to me and said, "Don't you ever have a good day?" She has officially become my lame duck! It is hard for me to believe that anyone, even a cold duck can turn a quiet conversation into a nasty comment and not expect to be caught. No, I didn't open my bill or quack a single quack. I just sat there and thought about how firmly her webbed foot is planted on my neck while she flies freely --- dripping peacock feathers in her wake. Since I don't have enough hutzpha to actually call her on it when she pulls out my tail feathers one by one, I think I'll quit worrying about her feelings and never visit her pond again. Oh, yeah --- don't bother telling me that peacocks are all males, because this hen really has a set!