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Quackers Fit the Bill
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: 2017/06 - June
When my son was four I woke up one morning with a gravelly voice. I told him I was hoarse and had a frog in my throat. He thought for a minute, then asked me to open my mouth so he could see the horse and frog.
Four-year-olds are uber literal.
And so it was with my grandmother and four-year-old Me.
Granny told me, “Never eat wild mushrooms. You’ll die if you do.” Even at four the dying concept wasn’t lost on me, having recently flushed Ishkabibble, the goldfish, to his watery doom. Anxious, I made Granny strain the mushrooms out of her cream of mushroom soup before I’d eat it, wondering all the while: Is she trying to kill me?
To keep me from swallowing seeds (apple seeds have cyanide in them) she told me that if I ate a seed a tree would grow out of my ears. One day I accidentally swallowed an orange seed. I ran to the mirror and watched my head for hours, fully expecting to see a citrus limb spring from my ear while a bluegrass band belted out “Orange Blossom Special.” My life has always had a soundtrack.
When nothing happened I decided to conduct a science experiment. We had a ceramic duck, wings flung back, beak open, straining at an imaginary flying morsel. I liked that duck and named him Quackers.
Even though he was a friend, someone had to make a sacrifice since my very life was at stake. Quackers filled the bill, as it were. So I flung a few apple, orange, and grape seeds into his mouth, then watched him all afternoon, assuming his fate would be my own. The next day there were no vines. No trees. Not a single stem spouting from his handsome duckhead. Logic told me Quackers and I would survive. From then on, any seed that found its way into my mouth, found its way into Quackers’…for safety’s sake.
Recently, while going through my mom’s belongings, I unearthed Quackers in perfect condition, still loaded with seeds that had dried to dust.
Thankfully, Quackers and I remain treeless.
