What I Wish I Knew Before I Won a Duck Plushie the Size of a 10-Year-Old Child at a Theme Park
Life lessons come in all shapes and sizes
The single most important thing I wish I had known before I won a giant yellow duck stuffed animal at a theme park’s basketball carnival game was just how exhausting it would be to carry that thing around all day. Not physically exhausting — the big guy was actually quite light and the early spring Florida weather was pleasant — but emotionally exhausting.
The thing nobody tells you about carrying a humongous duck around a theme park is that you have to be “on” at all times. The pressure to perform is overwhelming. There are no respites. No reprieves. No moments of quiet contemplation. (At least not for you. The duck is pretty good at carving out some me time and protecting its peace.)
Before I won the giant duck, I was just an average man. I blended into the scenery. Strangers rarely approached me or acknowledged my existence. I didn’t realize just how magical that level of anonymity was. Until I won a giant duck at a theme park. Because once I did, I immediately morphed from an average man into an average man carrying a giant duck. It changed everything.
Children pointed and smiled. Whispering conspiratorially to each other behind their hands.
Grown men gave me enthusiastic thumbs up.
Toddlers raced toward me like I was a character in the theme park cast. (To be fair, when a toddler made a beeline in my direction and faceplanted on the curb, we were walking through Sesame Street Land, the worst possible place to be seen carrying a giant yellow bird. I should’ve seen that calamity coming.)
People of all shapes and sizes talked to me. Boy, did they ever. They asked where the duck came from and how I procured it. They asked if they could touch it. They commiserated about how large and unwieldy it was. They suggested that I strap it into the passenger seat of my car so I could use the HOV lane.
My cheek muscles began to ache from all the forced smiling I had to do. I wish I had known. I would’ve trained my face.
This brings me to another crucial point. One I had never even considered. When you win a giant duck at a theme park, the possibility exists that you will encounter another person carrying an identical giant duck. What do you do then?
Even if you think your odds of winning a giant duck at a theme park are very low, now is the time to start thinking about what you’re going to do when you’re standing in the shade against a wall, your duck cradled under your arm with the tail facing out, and a man walks your way holding a duck that is the identical twin of yours. If you fail to prepare, perhaps thinking something like “How hard could it be to ad-lib an adequate response in such a situation,” you’re setting yourself up for catastrophe.
Because the man walking toward you with the identical giant duck may be a “fun guy.” You know the type. Longish hair arranged in an easy and confident way. Strong forearms. The kind of guy casual acquaintances describe as “So funny!” Anyway, when the “fun guy” walks your way and begins bobbing the head of his duck at your duck and quacking kind of aggressively, you better have a plan.
If you don’t, you might panic. You might fumble your duck as you try to turn it around so it’s facing its sibling — like it’s a dog meeting another dog at the park and you want to let it sniff. You might think, a bit feverishly, “Maybe I can wave its arm (wing?) in greeting? That could be… fun? Appropriate?” Before you’re done considering all this, the man and his duck will probably have flitted past, and you’ll realize you didn’t even manage to acknowledge them in any real way. Your duck will still be staring at the wall. Why did you even feel the need to turn it around? It’s not like it’s a sentient being with functional eyes.
Prepare now or suffer the consequences. Ask me how I know.
On second thought, is the giant plushie a sentient being with working eyes? I didn’t even think about this possibility until a woman walked by while I was sitting on a bench next to my duck, waiting while my family was riding a water ride, and said, gesturing toward the duck, “Is there someone in there?” I wasn’t prepared for that question, but I remained calm in the moment and replied, “I hope not!” That killed. Feel free to use that line if you want.
If you win a giant duck plushie at a theme park, there’s a high probability that you’re going to meet an older guy in a yellow golf shirt and it’s going to turn into a whole thing. You’ve gotta figure out a way to deal with this. He’ll become a recurring character in your day so you’ll have to pretend to be excited about seeing him when he pops back up. I honestly don’t know what advice to give here. Some things you have to figure out on your own.
Your duck’s feet will get dirty. It’s an inevitable part of being a giant duck parent. Don’t stress about it. You have to let giant ducks be giant ducks. Sit back and enjoy the ride. It will all be over before you know it and all that will be left are the memories (and the dirt stains).
You will likely get a little delirious from all the attention at around the six-hour mark of carrying the duck around the theme park. You will pass by a small lake with flamingo-shaped paddle boats and have an intense urge to rent one and take your duck for a little boat ride. Resist the urge.
When a child passes by and says, “Oh, hi there, Sir Quacks A Lot!” Don’t beat yourself up because you didn’t come up with that sick name first. It’s not worth the regret. What’s done is done.
If you’re thinking about looking in the rearview mirror on your drive home, don’t.
When you get home, your Labradoodle puppy is going to be terrified. You can use this to your advantage. If he even thinks about chewing on the couch cushions again, threaten him with the duck.
I would say I wish I had known that a giant duck plushie the size of a tween child does not easily assimilate into whatever interior decorating style you have going on at home, but I feel like I already knew this at some innate, primordial level. I think we’re born knowing some things. Babies instinctively know how to seek food by rooting and that giant ducks are difficult to integrate into a home’s decor.
However, I do wish I had known that placing your giant duck in a chair outside your children’s bedrooms is a bad idea. If you do decide to place your duck there, one of your children may wake up in the middle of the night, open their door, and immediately retreat to their bed where they will reportedly not sleep at all.
On second thought, maybe this is actually a very good idea. If the duck keeps the children in their rooms at night and keeps the dog from chewing the couch cushions, that’s a classic one bird, two stones situation.
If you happen to write a story about your middle school basketball career and publish it a few days before winning the duck, you’re kind of out of luck. That thing you wrote about the highlight of your basketball career being a blind wraparound pass you threw in practice is no longer historically accurate. The miraculous duck-winning shot is now and forever will be your greatest achievement in basketball and life.
Finally, if you win a giant duck at a theme park carnival game, it will become your entire personality for at least a few days. It will be the only thing you talk about. The only thing you write about. You’ll contact people you haven’t talked to in years just to let them know about the duck. Lean in. Embrace it.
Let the duck become your legacy.
Check out last week’s post for more on the duck’s origin story:
My books:
Love’s a Disaster - contemporary fiction about a marriage proposal gone wrong, complicated families, second-chance love, Florida, sword fighting, and punk rock music.
Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years - essays and humor about the very early years of my parenting journey
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I was completely fine with this until – and I don’t want to duck-shame here – I saw its elephantine legs.
All the previous comments about the duck’s legs still did not prepare me for the actual image of the duck legs.