Quacktastrophe in Suburbia
I officially had an “old man” moment the other day. I told someone to get off my lawn.
See attached photo for a high-tech event recreation generated by a supercomputer (it’s a picture of my yard with added emojis and arrows pointing at things).
It was around 6 or 7 in the evening. I was in the driveway putting a new bed cover on my truck. Up in my yard, there was a male and female mallard at the base of the bird feeder, eating the gently-used birdseed on the ground. This pair has become newfound regulars around our house. They just softly quack amongst themselves and go about their business—snacking on leftover seed and doing whatever other duck things they like to do.
A little ways down the road were three people—two females and one male—probably between 17 and 23 years old. They were walking along the road, having a pleasant conversation I couldn’t quite make out, until they got in front of my house. Then their conversation abruptly stopped as the male pointed at the ducks and said, “Oh look! There’s a duck in that yard!”
One female said, “Oh wow, look at that!”
“I’m going to go pet it,” the male replied.
“What—” the other female started to say, until he suddenly ran up into my yard toward the bird feeder.
He walked around the back of the willow tree, stooped over, with a hand sticking out doing the duck equivalent of “here kitty kitty kitty… pspspsps…”
I stopped working on my bed cover and stared at him, surprised that someone would intentionally walk that far up into my yard to pet a wild duck. After several long seconds of staring at him, I asked with a curt tone, “Why are you in my yard?”
“Uh, there’s a duck,” he said, pointing at the mallard.
“Okay,” I said, “So why are you in my yard?”
“There’s a duck,” he repeated—this time with a more stern tone.
“Right,” I said again. “Get out of my yard.”
“Oh, sorry bro, I didn’t realize it was your pet or something…” the doofus said.
“It’s not my pet. Get out of my yard,” I said, using my assertive voice.
“It’s not your pet? Then I’m going to pet it. It’s a duck!”
“This isn’t your property, dude. Get out of my yard,” I said, pointing at the road.
“But there’s a duck…” he said, bending over and starting to walk toward the pair again as they waddled a few feet away.
“Dude, get out of my yard. This isn’t your property,” I said, now using my irritated dad voice.
That nitwit stood by the bird feeder for this entire conversation. His female companions had stopped at the road near the driveway, mouths agape, just watching the whole interaction.
Finally, he started to walk between the two trees back toward his friends.
“Guys, he won’t let me pet the duck,” he said to the females.
“What?” they said collectively, with a tone of disbelief.
“Get out of my yard. This isn’t your property,” I interjected again.
“Geez, sorry bro,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were going to make this into an issue.”
“Dude, you can’t just walk into yards that don’t belong to you,” I said as they continued down the road.
They kept whining as they walked. I could hear a good chunk of their conversation until they were about three houses down. It centered around, “I can’t believe that old guy wouldn’t let me pet his duck.”
So, I finally had an “old man” moment. It felt amazing.
I can’t wait to just sit on my porch swing and tell nearby kids to get a job, pull up their sagging pants, and turn their hats around the right way.