Today was one of the more unusual days of my life!
As usual, I was working in my basement office (Work from home rocks!), when I heard loud sounds upstairs. No deliveries were expected, and it was a bit early for a delivery too. Admittedly my house is 125 years old, but I don’t really believe in haunted houses!
Arriving upstairs, I see a black shape fluttering against the front window behind my Japanese screen / divider. My first thought was, “Oh great, somehow a bat got inside my house.”
Getting closer and looking behind the Japanese divider, revealed that it wasn’t a bat but a duck! How on Earth did a duck get in my house?
Starting to talk to it, I attempted to explain that fluttering against the window wasn’t going to work. Hey, all animals understand English if you speak softly enough right? Her response was to waddle behind the piano to hide.
Like any IT guy would do, I consulted Grok to see what the AI had to say about how to get a duck out of your living room. Grok advised me to move slowly (“the duck is more confused than I am”) and with something like a towel, gently nudge her to the door and let her out.
She was still sitting behind the piano. That simply would not do! I couldn’t leave a duck to nest behind my piano. After about a half hour of hoping she’d come out again, I fetched a broom to try and coax her out from behind the piano. Oops! She made another attempt to fly out the living room window and then scurried into the other corner.
Once again I tried to gently coax her out again, my thought was that if I could get her into the open then maybe I could throw a piece of cloth over her to stop her from attempting to fly through the window. Nope! This time she took off full fledged and flew around the living room, dining room, into the library and then into the bathroom.
Shutting the door, I was relieved that at least I’d confined her to a reasonable location while I could figure out what to do.
Several times I came into the bathroom and talked calmly to her. She seemed to accept the bathtub as a reasonable place to sit for a couple hours. Grok told me that ducks like lettuce, so I gave her a piece of spinach (closest thing I had) but she thought I was perhaps a bit nuts feeding her in a bathtub. Clearly she didn’t want food!
Finally I decided to just go for it. Talking calmly to her I grabbed her and put her in a bin. Keeping a piece of cloth over her, I carried the bin out to my front porch and set it down so that when she finally got her courage up she could fly away.
I’m still completely baffled as to how she got inside in the first place. I’ve never heard of a duck falling down the fireplace chimney. But how else could she have entered my home?
Well, that sure doesn’t happen every day!
What an adventure you had this morning! You had me laughing! Maybe because something like that wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve had characters show up at the darnedest times in the darnedest places.
Now I’ve argued with a duck or two. But, I’ve never seen one in a house.....as of yet. I should probably start knocking on wood right about now. (Smile...)
My first thought was she came in via the fireplace. She is lucky. When I lived in Minnesota, a coworker invited us over for dinner. He told us that before we arrived, he found a duck in the fireplace that had gotten stuck but didn’t make it. 😵
I am happy to hear that your duck was fine. 🦆😊