Suffering succotash!

Saturday was supposed to be a scheduled day. A day to mingle with CafePress Voice members at our offices, then go into San Francisco for a nice dinner. We'd had a great happy hour the night before, but Saturday had a longer and more organized schedule with some work sessions, lunch, and then a nice night of a relaxed dinner and some City sightseeing for the out-of-towners.

The day started out on-schedule - I showed up to the offices at the crack of noon, talked to some Voice folks, had some great interviews and conversations and then left with time to do some errands, head home and get ready to BART into the city.

Things were proceeding as-planned until I hit the 101 freeway onramp at Hillsdale in Foster City. This is an arcing onramp that makes a 180 degree turn onto 101, and everyone was hitting their breaks at the beginning of the curve. I jogged left into the carpool lane (thanks, Prius HOV stickers) and then saw that a car had stopped with the hazards on.

It was then that I realized why she'd stopped: a mother duck and a huge... um, litter? gaggle? collection?... of ducklings had tried to cross the freeway onramp and was now trapped up against the wall with nowhere to go.

On the drop over the wall was a freeway offramp/street. On another side was 101. And up the ramp was E. Hillsdale, which is a busy street on its own. I have no idea where the heck this duck came from or how she came to be in the carpool lane on this onramp, but this was most assuredly not the place for a duck crossing.

Resigned to possibly making myself a bit late for dinner, I stopped the car on the carpool lane shoulder, flicked the hazards on and tried to figure out what to do. The woman who'd already stopped jumped out of her car to divert traffic around us and the ducks.

Fortunately, we were towards the top of the onramp and in very full view of anyone entering the onramp, so it's not like we threw ourselves into the middle of 60 MPH traffic or anything. However, we did have the odd problem of figuring out how to safely collect a Mom duck and her... um, brood?... and then figuring out what the heck to do with them.

The woman was on the phone with 911 and was freaking out, so I figured I'd better get to the business of collecting ducklings. The picture at right is not the ducklings in question, but a good representation of them - though the ducklings in question were a younger and fuzzier than these guys (like the guy below).

So, to sum up:

There were a LOT of ducklings. I counted 13, but a couple were jumping around so there may have been a couple more. And they were wee little fuzzy things and couldn't remotely fly. And Mom was not happy about her situation. And they were all up against the retaining wall on a freeway onramp in imminent danger of being squashed if they decided to bolt.

At this point I figured I'd better try to save the babies first seeing as how Mom probably wouldn't leave them, without getting myself pecked (or whatever ducks do) or leading Mom to fly away or fly into oncoming traffic to her demise, thus leaving me with 13 orphaned ducklings. Which is the last thing I need. Seriously.

I would, at this point, like to thank Whole Foods for providing sturdy paper shopping bags that I keep in my car to re-use when I grocery shop. In addition to providing a good re-usable bag alternative, it turns out that Whole Foods bags are also good for providing quality temporary duckling housing.

So, task 1 was completed: ducklings were safe in the Whole Foods bag, cheeping away and letting Mom know where they were.

Mom, on the other hand, would not come so easily.

Without going into huge detail, let's just say that trying to catch an adult duck who's surrounded by busy streets full of potentially fatal duck traffic is not the easiest thing in the world. Here's what I learned:

1. Don't try to use your gym towel to catch an adult duck. They will fly away from it. You're just too slow.
2. Ditto to your gym bag.
3. Mama ducks *will stay with their ducklings, even when their ducklings are in the footwell of a Prius on a freeway onramp. They'll also follow you around if you carry that bag and try to lure them out of traffic.
4. Baby ducks are sinfully cute and are generally content to hang out in the bottom of a Whole Foods bag. However, there's always those few bastard babies that will try to jump out of the bag (or your hands), so if you're going to try to lure Mom with a single baby in your hand you should choose one of the mellow ones that's hanging out sleeping with some siblings, rather than the jumping cheeping one.
   
5. Ducks won't get into your car willingly. Even if you put their bag o' babies in your footwell. Instead they'll keep running under your car, thus making you look like a complete jackass to oncoming traffic.
6. Ducks don't actually have much in the way of human-harming weaponry. They have bills, not beaks. So the best course of action to catch a duck is to get over the fear of the duck and grab it without hurting it.
7. To grab an adult duck, you probably need more than one person. Try to corner the duck up against a high surface, since ducks can't fly straight up. Then grab the duck (gentle - it's a bird) and hold it close, trying to contain the wings.

#5 and #6 are what happened once the police showed up and got done with screaming at us for blocking traffic.

Now, to be fair, the babies being in a Whole Foods bag in my footwell meant that to all passerbys and the cops it looked like 2 crazy ladies were running around a freeway onramp chasing a duck that can clearly fly away on its own.

However, I'd just spend 45 minutes trying to wrangle a very frantic Mama duck. This had included hopping the retaining wall when she flew over, diverting traffic when she flew into the iceplant onramp median, luring her out of traffic various times with a bag full of babies, and various ridiculous "come here, ducky ducky!" attemps to get her into my car while having horrible images of being the guardian of 13 orphaned ducks who were going to imprint on me and follow me forever. And it was hot. And now I was running late. So getting met with a screeching, red-faced police officer that looked all of 19 years old wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

After cussing at Opie (as this officer will now be known), the other lady took off. My response to this officer also included a big fat curse word, and then I showed him that I had an entire bag full of tiny ducklings. He took a peek in and was met with a view that looked something like this photo, and he then lightened up and told me that I needed to move my car to the bus lane. Which has fine, except that Mom duck was still on the onramp. Which he then solved by making a grab for her, causing her to fly over the retaining wall and into oncoming traffic.

Awesome.

Fortunately, Mom duck then flew out of traffic and onto the sidewalk next to the retaining wall. And we were back to square 1.

After moving the cars (we had 2 squad cars) and taking the babies over to the Mama duck and watching 2 young cops looks at each other and say "What are we supposed to do now?" and convincing them that they really needed to catch Mom so that the babies wouldn't pull a "Fly Away Home" on me, Opie got over his fear of being pecked and managed to grab Mom up against the wall.

After securing her wings we decided that he should probably just get into my car and I'd drive everyone to the park, which was the best place we could think of for the ducks. I mean, her duck husband is presumably in Foster City somewhere (and where was he during this crisis, hmm? Out drinking with the Mallards?) so I didn't want to take her too far away. Plus I don't think Opie was up for a long-distance duck relocation commute, what with having left his squad car in a bus turnout and with an angry Mama duck pecking him and trying to fly out of his arms every few minutes.

It was at this point that I decided to name the duck Matilda. I don't know why, but the sight of a baby-faced rookie cop being pecked by an angry duck just made me go "Matilda, stop trying to attack the officer!" And so it was.

So I put the babies and a duck-wrastlin' cop and Matilda in my Prius, and we headed off to the park with a police escort behind us. I lent the officer my gym towel, since he told me that his "tans" are dry-clean only and we figured Matilda might poop on him out of fear. Or spite. Or both.

And that's how it came to be that the park-hangin' denizens of Foster City were greeted with the assuredly odd sight of a police officer holding an angry, flapping duck (he'd lost his hold on her wings) while being escorted from a Prius by a girl carrying a Whole Foods bag.

He put Matilda down on the lawn, and I scooped the babies up and put them on the lawn and they waddled over to a very relieved Mom. After lecturing Matilda for her poor choice in duck crossings, I left.

And I still thought I could make dinner. Except that when I got home it turned out that one of my dogs had jumped out a window to explore the neighborhood, and our 'hood is also surrounded by busy streets that make a poor dog crossing.

So I then spent the next 90 minutes trying to find a rogue exploring dog, who ended up coming home on his own and wondering what the big deal was. But that's another story. And it's boring.

And that's why I missed dinner with CP Voice. And I really hope that nobody ordered the duck.