Duck, duck, ornithophobia.

I have a friend who is TERRIFIED of birds. Tippi Hendren backed against a wall, hands defending her face type terrified. Apparently this is not so uncommon. It has a name: ornithophobia. In saying that though, so does the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth: arachibutyrophobia. And the fear of long words: sesquipedalophobia.  I am not going to comment on the obvious irony of that being quite a long word... because that would be too obvious.  This all makes me feel very normal about my podophobia!

So, the strange part is not that that she has a fear of birds but rather that this fear developed from a childhood memory – which wasn’t actually hers. A few years back whilst going through old photos we came across a photo of the scene of her terror. Two small girls huddled together on top of a picnic table screaming at the ducks and swans surrounding them.

Terrifying.

Only, she doesn’t have a sister… and has never been to that park.

Turns out that the friend who is actually in the photo is such a good story teller that it has haunted her since childhood. Tippi Hendren backed against a wall, hands defending her face type haunted.

I mention this only because I was reminded of it yesterday on a baby distraction mission to see the ducks.

I have always been a very vocal cautioner against feeding bread to ducks.  Though delicious, the resulting avian botulism, malnutrition and noxious odours resulting from decomposing remnants of the tasty snack around their watery home just isn’t worth the carby delight. That is, until there is a small child squealing with delight as she throws her sandwich at the ducks. Eat little duck, bloat and discharge schistosomatidae. That’s right, leave plenty floating in the water to form aspergillus, clog the waterways and diminish the other aquatic life my child is effing loving it!

After all the excitement of destroying our local natural habitat she was utterly exhausted and took a long, long nap which allowed me to finally finish reading Wicked. Years it has taken me to finish that book. Not because Gregory Maguire's brilliantly clever depiction of how the apparently reasonable though perhaps wildly passionate actions of the Witch lead to her branding isn't absorbing it's just because that’s how I roll!

Despite my friend chanting death to all ducks I do feel guilty. I would hate for a seemingly innocent action to have me branded forever throughout literature as the duck killer!