I was driving to work recently, racing as usual, the freeway traffic moving at its normal brisk pace. Imagine my surprise when I see a bit of debris on the side of the freeway and a small brown baby duck looking right at me, shaking and  looking terrified.  We made eye contact, my blue eyes seeing his scared brown eyes as I sped by.  

At this point I’m running late for work and there is no way I can stop. What the hell would I do with a baby duck in my car? When I arrive at work, I’m like crazy upset!  What kind of asshole would leave a baby duck on the side of the freeway, what kind of cold blooded person would do something like this.?

I call the Bird Sanctuary in my town and tell the receptionist what happened, I can tell she’s skeptical. My story does seem a little crazy and I can feel her frustration with me. She tells me for the third time that it’s not duck season right now and she has no one who can go check it out. I hang up heartbroken, the poor little guy is probably road kill at this point!

I leave my husband a quick text message and tell him what happened. He’s my Super Hero when it comes to any animal in danger or hurt.

He immediately grabs his Superhero Cape, jumps into his car and flies off to save the day. He begins driving up and down the freeway blowing up my phone with text messages. ” Where exactly did you see it,” Which wall was it next to?” He must have driven back and forth between three exits for about a hour. Soon the tone of the text messages changes. Are you sure you saw a duck, he writes? Of course, his sad eyes brown eyes looked right at me, I write.

But as I start to think about it, did I really see a baby duck while traveling at 65 m.p.h.? Did I just convince myself it was a duck? Why on earth would a baby duck be sitting on the side of the freeway? How much sleep did I get last night?

My husband tells me all he saw was a bit of debris that looked like a piece of brown carpet and some fuzzy, cottony material. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was in fact my Donald Duck, exactly where I said he was.

Lesson, go to bed earlier at night so the hallucinations are kept at bay!