Freak Magnet Dave

Last night The Squeeze and I were watching some old episode of "Friends". Back in the era when Chandler and Joey had a duck and a chicken living with them. What the hell was up with that? That's worse than when the Brady's had Cousin Oliver living with them. Anyway, I said to The Squeeze, "Wouldn't it be cool to have a duck? Not in the house, but out in the back yard in a pond. You know, just so we could have it swimming around, and we could go out back and feed it."
"Ya, you could bake it a nice anvil and have the duck disappear for a few days," he said.
Of course, I had to give him the skunk-eye. Let me give you the history of the anvil...

A few years back, The Squeeze and I rented a cottage with another couple we are good friends with. It was situated in northern Ontario on a nice quiet lake and we had the luxury of a nice long dock on which to relax (ok, drink).

Naturally I had to bring my bread maker up with us so we could have fresh bread and, more importantly, fresh cinnamon buns. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my measuring spoons, and there were none in the cottage so I had to wing it and guesstimate measurements. This normally isn't a problem with cooking, but baking is another story. It's very much chemistry, and if things aren't in the proper proportions, things just don't work out. Well, the first loaf of bread I made might have risen about an inch, and when it was done baking, weighed in around twenty pounds. As such, it garnered the nickname "The Anvil".

Clearly not suitable for human consumption, I thought I would take it down to the dock and feed it to the mother duck and her little ducklings that came around every morning. They were just so adorable, and being a bit of an animal/nature nut, I really felt a bond with the little things. For the first few days that we were there we fed them bits of bread and buns and crackers or whatever we had kicking around that we thought they might like. I just assumed that they wouldn't be so picky as to turn their noses up at my home-baked offering, and I was correct. Mother and babies had their fill, and I decided I'd hang on to the rest of the loaf and feed them again the next morning.

The next morning arrived and I went down to the dock with "The Anvil" to wait for my little winged friends. And I waited. And waited. And waited. They did not arrive for their daily visit. One of our friends suggested that maybe they all sank to the bottom of the lake after eating the bread yesterday. Very funny. I gave up for that day. I figured they would be back the next morning.

The next morning arrived and I went down to the dock with "The Anvil" to wait for my little winged friends. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Again, they did not arrive. (How appropriate that I'm writing this on Groundhog Day)

I began to be a bit concerned. Maybe I did kill them with those breadcrumbs. Actually, they were more like lead ingots than breadcrumbs. This went on for a few days, and I endured endless harassment about my pathetic attempt at baking until one morning when the ducks finally returned to give me another chance. Needless to say The Anvil had been thrown in the trash, and I had offerings of real bread made by someone who had the means to measure their ingredients.

Obviously, the ducks were able to forgive my error and let bygones be bygones. So why can't The Squeeze do that???