1. sex
2. folding sheets
3. celebrating New Years
4. feeding ducks

So over the weekend I got the urge to walk into the park and feed some ducks. The urge is amplified by the fact that I live next to a bread factory. But there are rules, strict guidelines, which I must adhere to seeing as how I'm only half a couple. I'm a cou. Get a couple of us single cous together and we're couscous... (ok, a long way to go for a lame grain joke. Sorry.)

Bringing a loaf of bread is out, too much to be given out by one person in nice duck-sized bites. Instead I opt for a few dinner rolls. They are good, palm-sized and fresh out of the oven. They make nice hand warmers. I get four rolls. Three make it to the lake in the park. The fourth, in an act of sheer panic, leapt into my mouth. Go figure.

I'm at the lake. It's looking to be a nice day. Not too sunny or warm, but it'll do. Should still be duck feeding weather. There are mostly elderly couples around. A few elderly cous as well. None of them are feeding the ducks. I also notice how a majority are in some kind of jogging suit thing. Both sexes are wearing these big, brown-lensed sunglasses. The men have whatever hair they have left slicked back. All the women seem to have big plastic earrings on.

Hello and welcome to Miami...

It's funny how all babies look alike. Little stubby fingers and toes, chubby cheeks, whisps of hair, steely eyes, and a smile that could charm the bumble from a bee. Then we grow up and we start to diverge. Grow into our own distinctive look (unless you're from the South, where the family trees are straight lines). We get pierced, painted, Pierre Cardin... whatever it takes. But no matter how hard we rebel as a teen, strive to become an individual in our 20s, complete the journey in our 30s, try to return to our youth in our 40s and 50s, we still end up with slicked back hair and plastic earrings in our 60s and 70s. Get funky while you can, I guess. Wear all the cool clothes now, because in a few decades you'll be in a neon green jumpsuit from Ross.

But I digress. Ducks are what I'm here to talk about.

So I'm throwing tiny bits of dinner roll to these ducks (explaining to them why I don't have a bag of bread) when it hits me: Here we are, taking all these bread butts, stale, moldy, whatever. We're throwing them into bags in the freezer for later duck feeding. Pretty much the bottom of the barrel in breadom (next to stale doughnuts and fruitcake). We're feeding this crap to ducks, yet we pay through the nose when we order ol' Daffy here at some swanky restaurant.

What gives?

Somehow, somewhere, ducks have been pushed through the ranks as some kind of "premium" bird meat. The guys raising these things must be raking in the dough (no pun intended). I bet they get the stale bread slices free from Wonder Bread! What's next, pigeon?!?

The ducks are semi-responsive. (Seagulls seem to be out of town for the holiday break.) I guess the ducks realize they don't have to work as hard being around only a single bread thrower. They've probably already figured out my Dinner Roll Tossing Pattern. How they can gobble down bread floating in the water I'll never know. I think I saw Hoffa's pinky ring down there.

I should've brought more dinner rolls. Maybe even hotdog buns. I wonder if the ducks have a preference. Bread sticks? Sourdough? Tortillas? (Mental note: this subject requires further investigation.)

So we got ducks. We got dinner rolls, and we got old folks who shouldn't be allowed to dress themselves. Seems like a good a place as any to wrap it up. Now if I could only come up with a tortilla joke to end on...