Sunday, October 7, 2007

Quack Quilt

This quilt has matching pillows. My mother made it. She made the pillows also. She used to have a duck pond and some ducks. My sister liked to eat the ducks. Sometimes she would have a hankerin' for a duck and she would tell my mother to have my step dad go kill one of the ducks for her. Ducks should be de-feathered before consumption. There is a good way to pluck a duck. Of course, first, the duck should be killed. Then you need a big pot of melted paraffin. You can try hot water, but then you have the "water off a duck's back" problem. The paraffin is a hydrocarbon, similar to the coating on duck feathers. Dip the duck ...... huh, huh, huh .... dip the duck .... like you're dancing with ducks .... nope, dancing with wolves is cool ... dancing with ducks? Oh yeah, the paraffin .... it sticks to the duck feathers. you take the duck out of the molten paraffin and let it cool a bit. The wax gets hard. You peel the wax off like you wuz appealing a tangerine. Then you throw the feathers back in the melty wax and strain the wax so you can pluck another duck or make candles or seal jelly jars or something. But the duck will not have sections like a tangerine ... even if you make duck l'orange.
My mother does not have ducks anymore. She had a hog farm. But as society grew more so-fisticated the nay-boors decided the hogs smelled bad and might be a hazard to the whole world. So the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology shut down the hog farm business. Mom and step-dad sold the land and moved closer to town. Now my sister buys her ducks from Wal-Mart. I don't know what happened to the paraffin. They don't have paraffin anymore. They use beeswax. Beeswax is made by bees. Mama & Step-Dad raise honey bees. Honey is a natural antibiotic. If you eat honey, it is best to get honey made within about 10 miles of where you live. Honey made within 10 miles of where you live is made from pollen within 10 miles of where you live. If you have sinus problems, it is likely due to flowers within 10 miles of where you live. The local honey is claimed by some to be a kind of natural "antidote" to hay fever. If you get sick, you might get the chills. Then you could warm your feet in one of those paraffin footbaths and cuddle up with a duck quilt & duck pilow and watch something sappy on TV of maybe take a spoonful of honey. You could try honey & whiskey but then you would be sick AND confused. Maybe honey and an aspirin and a duck quilt and a duck pillow.
Quack, Quack!

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