Ducks, the New Family Pet

My brother owns his very own flock of ducks.  Scott bought them about fifteen weeks ago for his home in Mendon, Utah when they were tiny balls of fluff, having paid a premium price of 50 cents beyond the usual one dollar because he chose a variety of specific kinds of ducks to provide additional interest to his property.  And that they do.

He chose all males because apparently ducks get all silly when there is a mixed group.  This bunch just charges about all together, quacking, eating bugs out of the lawn, swimming in the little pond, pooping and waddling, clueless that they are free to leave at anytime though these seem to be flightless.  They also get all confused and quizzical when one gets out of step from the rest of the group.  Not a smart lot.

When one was attacked by a dog and lay in the road for awhile, Scott thought he was dead, and plans were made to clean him up, but soon he was up and gimping around.  He continues to lag behind the others, but the rest refuse to allow him to malinger, prompting him constantly to keep up, which, he cheerfully attempts to do.  They are a group, you see, and a bum leg is no excuse.

Scott's grandson, Sean, inadvertently stepped on one when it was tiny and it lay there all squished and wonky, but that one, too, came around.  Maybe ducks aren't terribly smart, but they are resilient.

Winters get pretty drastic up there in Mendon but Scott isn't worried about his ducks.  "They can probably take the Winter weather," he says.  But if they can't, he says, he's learned from a pal that there's a Chinese family down the road who quite enjoy duck and he can always invest in a new flock next Spring.  They're really not that pricey and from what I hear, quite delicious.

How Bad Behavior Really Hurts

I read in an MSNBC article on the net today how rudeness can really upset the day for everyone.  We like to pretend that it doesn’t bother us, but the mood goes completely south when we even witness a transitory situation where someone we don’t even know is treated badly or treats someone else badly.  

We even fester through the day over what we should have done to help or intervene.  The article tells of a woman who had come into a store attempting to bully a store owner into a full refund for an item she had purchased on sale.  When the store owner finally found the original receipt and found that it had indeed been purchased at a discounted price, the crazed customer screamed that the owner was trying to “rip her off” and said as she left, “I can’t believe you treat customers this way.  I’m never coming back!”   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38310679/ns/health-behavior/

We’ve all seen such tirades and know the relief we feel when it’s over.  But the article indicates that studies done indicate that seeing such a scene make us become so alarmed, that it “measurably affects . . . creativity and performance.”  We know when we are the receivers of rudeness it impacts us, but just witnessing it apparently can affect us as well.  

The article goes on to talk about how rudeness in American is growing and blames tv and reality shows like  “Jersey Shore, The Hills, The Real Housewives group, Fliping Out and 90% of the Bravo Networks lineup. . . . these shows glorify and pay tribute to the art of treating each other like garbage and are the epitome of the promotion of rudeness and extremely bad behavior.”

I remember some years ago that someone had said that if I were having a bad day, I could trace it back to some incident, and if I did, I might be able to turn the bad day around.  I found that was true.  Usually it’s nothing large, but it’s something enough to cause the day to go grey and sour.

The article  considers that perhaps the growth of rudeness somehow might correspond with the decrease in shame.  It makes good sense to me.  

My brother, Scott, reminded me a month or so ago that my mother used to tell us that there are some things that decent people just don’t say.  We thought she was rather provincial at the time when we were young.  I think, though, that she was probably right and could be expanded upon.  I think there are there are things that decent people just don’t do, either.  And I think we better teach our children about it soon or we are going to be really feeling sorry about the world we will be living in.