Tea Time

 

 

            I checked through the peephole.  I found there were five of them.  Two more than I’d been expecting.  Leave it to them to invite along their own guests without telling me.  The ducks stared up at me when I opened the door.  They started quacking immediately.  Quack, Quack, Quack.  Loudly.  I stood back and held the door open.  The ducks came in.  One of them was pulling a little red wagon.  Inside the wagon was a plate of cookies. 

            I led them to the living room.  I tried to make pleasant conversation, but the ducks were quacking quite vigorously and quite loudly, so I could not get a word in edgewise.  I had put my good china out for this tea party.  I hustled to the china cabinet to get two more settings.  The teapot was full, but I went into the kitchen to put some more water on to boil.  I wasn’t sure there would be enough tea for all of us.  I would just have a small sip; that should help.

            When I got back to the living room, I saw two of the ducks sitting on the coffee table.  One of the tea settings had been knocked over.  Another duck was quacking wildly at the cat, who was cowering in a corner.  The other two ducks were going through my DVD collection, picking a selection up with their bills and then discarding it on the floor.  The stereo was playing Sheryl Crow a little too loudly for my tastes.  And the quacking!

            I tried to pour the tea, but one of the coffee table ducks kept pecking at my hand, until I finally dropped the teapot.  It smashed to pieces on the floor.  I went into the kitchen to get some paper towels.  When I returned, the ducks that had been going through the DVDs had moved on to the CDs.  There were two piles.  The first pile included The Byrds and Counting Crows.  I assumed the other pile were the rejects.  I tried to offer a nice game of Scattergories.  I was ignored.  I cleaned up the mess that had been made of my teapot and finally gave up.  I took the tray of cookies from the red wagon.  Eating a cookie, I plopped myself down and listened to the quacking and watched the destruction of my living room. 

            Ducks have no manners, but they bake the best cookies.