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My house growing up was in, what was then, the middle of nowhere. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. You see, I lived on a street with about 20 houses on about a third of a mile. The surrounding 10 miles consisted of corn fields, pig farms, and forest. Of course there was also the occasional stream.

When I was about 5 years old one of the ‘locals’ we were very close to (surrogate aunt and uncle to be specific) brought over to us one of the more unusual gifts I’ve received in my life. This gift? A white flightless duck. Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. Maybe they had one too many at the ol’ homestead, but it meant I had a pet….even if it was a duck.

I really really really wanted to name the duck Jack for some reason, but as it turned out, Jack was a she, so she became Jacqueline. Surprisingly for a 5-year-old I did a pretty good job of feeding, watering and cleaning up after Jacqueline. I remember many a sunday morning going out to the garage, where we had a chicken wire fenced area of the garage for her, to feed her and absolutely mortifying my mom when I would come back in and my penny-loafers were covered in duck droppings.

But Jacqueline was a good pet, and I can only imagine the looks on peoples faces as that duck followed me around more closely than a little puppy. My parents ultimately hoped that Jacqueline would go live in the pond next door, the one the same aunt and uncle had put in the year or two before. But funny thing about my duck, she hated water. As in, my dad would pick her up and toss her a couple of yards out into the pond and she would be up the bank of the pond before he could move two steps.

I. Loved. That. Duck. Eventually my dad built a little 2×4 and chicken wire pen that we would put Jacqueline in at night, but over time we just didn’t need it. After all, she didn’t go anywhere.

Then, it happened. My brother and I decided that we wanted to camp out. Of course, to us, camping out was setting up a tent in the family room. Still, we were camping out and my parents were watching the 11pm newscast. All of a sudden we heard Jacqueline going crazy, then we heard a loud bark. My dad ran to the back door and ran outside…and Jacqueline was nowhere to be seen. He even got dressed, grabbed a flashlight and went looking. All he found were a few feathers.

I knew my duck was gone, and didn’t want to believe it, and like you’d expect of a five year old whose dog ran away or died, I sobbed into my mom’s shoulder the entire night. This was MY duck! And it was gone! I look back now and holy shit, I was that upset over a duck! I love duck! They taste great! I can’t believe I was so crushed over Jacqueline’s disappearance. Then again, I did have a bit of a bound with the animal, as odd as that bond may have seemed.

This isn’t one of those memories I think of very often, but after Hola, Isabel, spent a post talking about her brothers FFA pig, I couldn’t get it out of my head, and thought it might make for interesting reading. And you parents out there, remember, your kid can get attached to a duck or a pig, as much as it can a cat or a dog.