Dead duck at 2am.

in Random Crap

At 2am this morning I discovered a dead duck in my room.  If you know me you know this isn’t entirely strange given my penchant for ethically taxidermied animals but this was an unexpected, unclothed duck I didn’t recognize.  The whole thing unfolded on twitter so I thought I’d share it here so you’d know why you should follow me on twitter.  Or why you should unfollow me on twitter.  Depends, I guess:

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And I’m sharing all of this because it should make you feel better about yourself in comparison because if you haven’t realized there was a dead duck in your room for an indefinite period of time you are a far better housekeeper than I am.  You win.

PS. I just called Victor and I was like, “So do you know why there was a dead duck inside my flowers?” and he said, “Fucking what?” which sort of proves that he needs to be following me on twitter too because I had to repeat the whole occurrence and still he was confused.  Join the club, Victor.

UPDATED: It took a week but the mystery of the 2am sudden duck appearance is finally solved: Click here for the rest. #THEDUCKENING

141 thoughts on “Dead duck at 2am.”

Read comments below or add one.

  1. Do NOT ask Victor to follow you on Twitter. My husband finally joined Facebook, and now he is all, “What did you MEAN by that???” Totally not worth it.

  3. Have you considered the possibility that sick animals are breaking into your home and dying there in the hope of being immortalised by the taxidermist’s art? If I were you I’d check for more unexpected corpses.

  5. This just made my whole day. It is grey and gloomy here and someone was just passive aggressive all over me and I don’t care anymore because you had a dead duck at 2am. And the fact that Hailey didn’t think to tell you just MAKES it.

  8. Start knocking over the rest of the vases in your house, because that duckling needs a mother. And a best friend that’s a squid or something would be hilarious.

  10. You are making my recent release of a kitten into my household look like a sane decision…

  14. Props to Karendipitee…you can never have too many Inigo Montoya references in your life.

  16. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! That was the first good belly laugh since I found “Gayle” on YouTube. I need to check in more often! It made me think of this song my dad’s friend would song on car trips about a dead opossum in the middle of the road.

  18. The duck I get, but what on earth is up with that painting? I could not sleep with a portrait of a bear mauling staring me in the face. I worry about you sometimes.

    (I found it at a flea market. I prefer to think of it less as “mauling” and more as “aggressive hugging”. ~ Jenny)

  23. The duckling is a mystery and needs a friend. One can wear rainboots and the other a rainhat. Because that’s what friends do, they share.

    But I am fascinated by the bear hugging the woman. I can’t look away. I can’t decide if her eyes are screaming, “Dear god I’m going to die by mauling!” Or if she’s got “Bow chicks wow wow” music playing in the background and a honey filled picnic for her honey. I need this painting to stare at and love as my own!!

  24. If 2am is not the time for mysterious dead ducklings, then what would be a good time? 10am? When you’re having your first coffee of the day? 8pm? I like to know these things, in case I decide to send you a dead animal (ethically demised, of course).

  29. And so..what is the rest of the story…how do we find out how and why it got there…if Victor doesn’t even know….you need to find out…and tell us…and I guess I should have been on Twitter last night…

  30. What I want to know is how many times did autocorrect change the word “duck” to “fuck” for you?

    Because I’m guessing autocorrect works in the total opposite way for you than it does for some of us.

  31. Is it wrong that I am trying to read the titles of your books?
    Cute little duckling!! I love Hailey’s acceptance of finding a duckling in your flowers. It wasn’t even worth mentioning until questioned 🙂

  33. Omg I’m sitting at work reading this trying not to laugh and failing miserably. My question is were did u get the flowers I was a florists and I don’t remember ever putting dead ducks in my flowers. This however was probably the best thing I ever read!!!!!

    (They’re fake flowers and I’ve had them for years. So weird. ~ Jenny)

  34. Brings whole new meaning to being a “lucky duck”. It is, indeed, a lucky duckling, to have found a place in the afterlife which is, no doubt, safer than the existence it suffered in its short life on this earth.

    I mean, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks old before the undoubtedly horrifying cause of its death. It has clearly been watching you sleep for quite some time. I’m sure that’s more interesting than learning to swim!

  36. No one has ever sent me flowers with a dead duckling in them before. I am sad. All new low for me. But someone gave me a book of monsters, so we can call it even.

    I appreciate Hailey’s resignation to the notion that her mother has dead things.

  37. I NEED the pattern for that amazing cross-stitch!!! Scratch that. We ALL need the pattern for that cross-stitch. Now that I know it exists, I’m incomplete without it, Jenny! Don’t leave me hanging ♥️

  38. “How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.”
    ― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

    “The Massive Continuity of Ducks” shall be the title of my next book.

  39. I would love for Hailey to have twitter if only to relay these same exact stories from her point of view. Like “mom was asking me about dead ducks as I ate my froot loops this morning so…”

  41. See, this is exactly why I can’t do Twitter – I would be sleeping when all the excitement occurred every time. And then I’d wake up to chaos and confusion, and that would throw my whole day off. Better for you to recap on your blog at 9 am, so I’m fully capable of comprehending what’s happened while I was asleep.

  42. Dang it! Was up at 2am but not on Twitter and missed this whole saga. Duck needs a name, and maybe a small circle of salt around his feet. At least he’s not lurking in the flowers anymore, waiting to strike.

  43. This is the only time in my life I figure I want to figure out twit. I have a desperate need to know about 2am dead ducks magically escaping the forest of flowers and trying to pretend it’s all shy and cute so you let down your defenses. Nefarious and tricky…I shall name it Loki.

  44. The bigger question is: WHERE CAN I BUY THE PATTERN of RORY on your night stand?????

    (I think it might be one of a kind. It was a gift. But maybe the girl who made it will read this and share. ~ Jenny)

  45. This could so happen to me except in my case it would be alive and I would wake to my2 dogs either barking because they were terrified or wanting to play.

  47. My boys brought baby pheasants into the house one time. They got loose.
    You’d be AMAZED where you will find dead baby pheasants…
    I guess this might be different.

  48. I’m so sad I missed out making a hilarious twitter comment somewhere in this. I feel like I missed out on a great party somewhere. But then I’d have to think one up, and then I’d be up all night, and then I’d feel more hungover at work today than I actually do, even though I didn’t drink… ugh these sober morning hangovers at work really suck. I’m done adulting. Can I just go back to bed now? Yay long weekend coming up! Thanks for the morning laughs!!

  54. Stuff it if it wasn’t already. Dress it in a cute outfit- how about a vintage airplane pilot leather helmet, jacket and goggles

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

  55. This is better (and cuter) than what I was thinking in my head. I pictured a dead mallard, bloody, flying through the window. Now that’s some fire-and-brimstone SHIT!

  56. That flower arrangement does not look like a duck hideout. Seems like a shifty duckling.

  57. And here was me thinking it was a threat by your local neighborhood murderous swans. Kinda a like, “See what we do to babies who annoy us? Guess what we’re going to do to YOU? Muahahaha!” 🐥

  59. I always find so much to think about in your posts. Is there blood running down the woman’s arm in in rivulets in the painting’s from where the bear paw is hugging her?

  61. I love how the duck being unclothed is necessary to say while simultaneously deepening the mystery.

  62. So sorry I missed all this! It’s even better than the time Ken found a deer jaw bone in our backyard! (Still haven’t solved that one–general consensus is that a vulture must have been carrying it in its claws on its way to Vultureland and accidentally dropped it).

  65. How polite! It taxidermied itself before moving in – unlike an asshole mouse that moved in to my house. The cat chased it and lost it and 4 weeks later my bedroom was infested with huge blue/black flies. THAT mouse wasn’t polite at all! You must have stellar karma. :o)

  68. To me, the best part of this story is Hailey knocked over some flowers, a dead duck fell out and she didn’t think twice about it, didn’t even consider it something worth mentioning.

  73. WTD? My apologies for thinking the bear picture was a street artist portrait of you and Victor. You not being the huggy bear…

  75. i’m still confused… so, he’s (choosing a sex for the sake of this sentence, cause i hate the idea of calling a living (or once living) creature “it”)) not stuffed but simply passed away without decomposing? I’m sad if he wondered in and passed away, but confused too.

  76. [Steady bass guitar rhythm begins.]
    Speaking: Somewhere in a Texas bedroom The Bloggess is starting to feel like housecleaning has turned its back on her. It’s 2AM.
    Singing:
    It’s 2AM, Victor’s gone,
    She’s sittin’ there starin’,
    Twitter is on.
    She’s got so many animals she’s lost track of them all.
    Yeah there’s a duck on the loose,
    Quacking on my stand,
    Wrapped up in feathers,
    Pecking at my hand.
    Cannot be sure. How have the cats not noticed?
    Help I’m steppin’ into the duckling nest,
    Too much has happened
    For me to get an easy rest.
    My chicken’s been lost
    And there are candles in my hair.
    How can I sleep
    When I don’t know what’s there?
    And you are gonna freak
    When the stuffing hits the beak.

    This probably just makes things worse and to make it even more disturbing this is not the first time I’ve written parody lyrics to Golden Earring’s “Twilight Zone” based on someone else’s blog post. What is wrong with me?

  78. OK, that duck had to have been taxidermied at some point, because if it hadn’t been, there’s no way in hell that it would look as good as it does, assuming that it’s been hiding in your vase for any length of time beyond about 6 hours or so at all, which still leads to the question of how the hell it got into a vase of flowers in the first place. (Also, are you sure it was at some point in time an actual live duck, or is it just a really good fake duck? I could kinda almost see someone making something like that for crafting/home decor… Finally, should you ever decide you feel like being extremely generous to a fine cultural institution, check out the Museum of Bad Art–I suspect they’d be the perfect home for that painting on your nightstand, and no, I’m not kidding, they actually do exist and really do collect and display art, although they don’t take just any old piece of “WTF is THAT supposed to be?!?” that ends up at their doorstep. Give me a holler the next time you’re in the Boston area, and I’ll take you through the Somerville Theatre branch if you’d like, OK?

  79. Christopher: You’re a freaking genius, and that’s what’s wrong? 🙂 (You really don’t want to know the stuff we were all setting to various Nine Inch Nails songs back in the day on alt.music.nin, but hey, at least we all–and by “all” I mean everyone on the newsgroup and Trent, too, who was apparently a frequent lurker–had a seriously sick and twisted good time.)

  81. I’m not sure if I should say holy crap or holy quack. If I saw a dead duck on my nightstand my soul would leave my body.

  83. The duck is so cute that I’d be thrilled to find it on my nightstand. The painting, however…beautiful, but OMG BEAR!!! Not sure I could sleep with that nearby.

  85. One time, I found a live baby possum in my bathroom drawer. (I can prove it, too. I have a photo. I just don’t know how to post it here.)

  86. Hailey knocked over the vase, a dead duckling fell out, she presumably posed it upright just so on your nightstand, didn’t tell you about it, and you’re worried how to parent the situation effectively. There’s got to be more to the story. Or a family of ducks living near wherever the flowers came from.

    Not to be cheeky but you did give me a much needed laugh.

  87. Someone who loves you snuck into your room a lonnnnng time ago, planted the duck, and has been waiting ever since for you to notice.

  88. WAITAMINUTE I was thinking that Victor had sent you flowers when he headed off on a business trip and put the duckling in there as an extra joke.
    Kind of creepy if the florist did that on her own.

  89. Is it possible that you bought it for yourself, and forgot about it? You know, like the cobra. 😉

  90. Just spotted your response that you’ve had those fake flowers for years….so next thought: have you had a visit from a prankster recently?

  91. Definitely don’t let him follow you. I agree with a lot of commenters above, it rarely ends well and almost always ends with, WELL WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY THAT?? YOU DID WHAT?? YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO PLAY WITH (_____) AGAIN. NO YOU CAN’T STEAL A TRUCK FULL OF FIREMEN, I DON’T CARE THAT YOU “FOUND” THEM. FINDERS KEEPERS DOES NOT APPLY.

  92. My sympathies…awakened by a very live munchkin kitten this morning (loosely called that at 3:30am) but damn if he doesn’t make a fine pot of decaf:)

  95. One of my friends found a dead hooker under her bed during a bachelorette party in Vegas. She was not stuffed, it was not cute, she did not live Tweet the event.
    Honestly, I much prefer your story.

  96. In other news…NYT: The Bride and Groom Are Kittens. At Death They Did Not Part.
    The show “Taxidermy: Art, Science & Immortality” at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn offers a cat tableau by the Victorian Walter Potter. [http://tinyurl.com/hecxhye]

  98. And I only ever wake up to random dead mice in the center of my living room. I don’t know if it’s the dog or the cat that brings them in – but only in the middle of the night – and leaves their bloody little corpses in the exact center of my living room. Regardless, I’d prefer a dead ducky.

  100. So, I think demons prefer to take on snakes and vicious spider bodies. Dead ducks are just so yesterday, you know? You’re safe:).

  102. Is Ambien the sleeping pill that causes people to shop in their sleep for flowers and dead ducks? That conversation is the only thing that makes me a little sad to not be awake at 2am.

  104. Oh, Jenny, I an so jealous. All I ever find is a few dead spiders and the occasional ant. Obviously not putting out the right bait.

  107. That string of tweets was beyond awesome, but @snarkyhumanist wins, because that last one was a PERFECT capper.

  109. My husband not so subtley implied that I am as bad a housekeeper as you are. I said there’s no dead ducks in our bedroom. He replied that he couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t. He can be such a bastard sometimes.

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  111. I have no known ducks in my house. However, I am currently being besieged by a plague of flies. Apparently, if a mouse (I hope) dies in your wall it will bring on the plagues of Egypt rather quickly. The current variation begins with the first plague: mice in the laundry room (or large, loud spiders). This was followed swiftly by the plague of horrible stench. So far we are on plate number three: enormous flies swarming the laundry room, sunroom, and kitchen. They are slowly migrating throughout the house.

    I think I would rather have ducks.

  112. You found a random dead duckling on your dresser and I was dive bombed by a beetle today the size of your dead duckling before a group interview. Nature is one crazy lady this week! WTF Nature…W…T…F…..?

  113. So the moral of the story is that you should have awakened Hailey to asked about the dead duck by the flower vase, proving perhaps that children always know more than their parents, no matter the circumstances.

  114. Oh how I needed this after reading about the flat Earthers.No, I’m not sure why I torment myself like that either. Thsnks, Jenny. You always make things better.

  116. I’m pretty sure if my son knocked a dead duck out of my flowers, he would hunt me down immediately to demand WTF was going on. But your daughter just… propped him up all cute like and went about her day without even mentioning it? huh.

  119. I wish there was a way to reply to other people’s comments (if there is, I can’t see it), but this is to MZ at 112, as I have a fly-swarm remedy for him or her. We were swarmed by flies once like a freakin’ biblical plague and I googled them to ID them–if your swarm consists of a slow-moving, big type of fly, they are a blow-fly. Ours were specifically earth worm-attacking blow flies so we were in no danger that they’d bite us (blow flies are VERY specific about what they’re willing to eat, apparently.) Get a canister vacuum cleaner and take off whatever tool you have on the end so you are holding just the tube with a big, sucking maw and put some kind of dust in the bag if it’s a fresh bag without the dust from housecleaning already in it; baby powder would be good. You need something dusty in the bag to clog their ability to breath to kill them, because you are going to vacuum them up, right out of the air. My swarm loved to congregate and swarm at windows, so it was easy to just suck them right into the vacuum cleaner. They don’t even try to escape.

  120. “This seems like a premature use of the word ‘solved’.” Is my favorite thing on the whole internet today. Good job, internet.

  121. Is it taxidermied? A dying/recently deceased duck would have had a distinct aroma once. It is right next to your bed! Just saying

  122. Creepy as fuck duck, yes, but… can we please discuss the framed Rory/Beyonce art to its right?

    (And by “discuss,” I mean “Add it to your Zazzle shop so I can buy many of them and distribute them to friends as needed?”)

  123. You had better start keeping a machete under the pillow. This might just be the start of the Duckling Apocalypse!

  126. I happen to like your bear picture, he’s just hugging you (her) and forgot to trim his nails. So… is the duck dead and decomposing, mummified from sitting in a vase of flowers in the hot texas air, stuffed, or taxidermist. Inquiring minds WANT to know. Love ya

  127. The duck is a little creepy, in a cute way. Kind of like Eleven in Stranger Things. Even creepier is the fact that someone stuck the duck in the vase expecting that you would find it. I hypothesize that Victor and Hailey have teamed up to mess with you.

  128. Check the duckling VERY closely… I saw this in a movie once… Oh wait – that was a falcon. Never mind.

  129. Marvelous story.
    Your nightstand is SO much cleaner and better looking than mine. I could probably fashion a duck from the dust bunnies…
    I have that waterlily lamp! I love it; it’s one of the first things I ever got at Costco. Now they just have mattresses and luggage in that section. sigh

  130. Well, that’s not something you read about everyday. I imagine Duckling and Rory will become firm friends, less convinced about a positive relationship between it and the cats/Dorothy Barker though …

  131. I woke up today in a “what’s the point?” kind of mood. A few hours into my day, I read this, laughed, realized it doesn’t matter and I should just do my best to enjoy the day. thank you.

  132. At least you get cute dead animals. I get every sick animal on our block wandering onto my property and THEN dying! Just my house. Just mine. The neighbors are started to make comments.

  133. My best guess – you bought the duck and vase of flowers at the same time and stuck the duck in the vase for convenience and then completely forgot. Happens to me all the time.
    Meow meow meow

  134. This whole situation was entirely hilarious! At first I thought it was going to be a duck you find floating in the middle of a pond and I was like, “HOW DOES THAT GET THERE WITHOUT SOMEONE NOTICING?!” Lol!

  135. Wait, so you STILL don’t know where the duck came from?? Now I’m worried. It’s like he was the patrol scout in your flowers and once he was discovered he didn’t want to give up his buddies that are outside the house waiting for the signal to attack.
    Also, I may just make a twitter account for the sole purpose of following you.

  136. if you have victor follow you on twitter, you will no longer be able to tweet about him without him coming into your office asking why the hell you keep talking about him on twitter where all of your followers can read about how he never understands you.

  137. My money is on your father. Perhaps he leaves a small taxidermist present hidden in your house every time he visits….

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