I’m an avid reader. We can blame my mother who marched me to Hilo Public Library to supplement the exotic Dick and Jane series I was reading in first grade, where moms wore high heels while cleaning the house and dads went off to work in a coat and tie.
She put me under the tutelage of Miss Gray, head librarian who placed in my pudgy little paw books like “Little Women” and other stories of life on another planet. This continued at Hilo High where English teachers mandated more science fiction such as “Silas Marner,” “The Scarlet Letter” and “The Great Gatsby.”
All of this is to tell you that I have a tendency to read any kine stuff, often against my will but it’s as if an ancient force is directing me toward bizarre universes.
To counter that impulse, I look for non-fiction — just the facts ma’am — and rely on periodicals, local and national. But facts today are not only elusive but “alternative,” and not as firmly set in concrete as they once were. This results in crazy reports which are often filled with wild and fantastical stories, so I know some of you are snorting at my feeble attempts to avoid fiction. But thanks to Miss Gray, I plow on, hoping to find something comforting and familiar that I can connect to.
To this end, I browse our newspaper’s classified ads where as sure as rain, there will be relatable Hilo references. Until today.
Here’s what I saw under the heading of Free Pets: DUCK, Needs Home, Fresh Water and Safe Environment.
Oh dear. Where am I? Yes yes, I know what a duck is, having savored them as Peking and L’Orange, but as a pet?
Let’s examine the meaning of the noun pet (person, place or thing) by starting with the verb pet (shows action.) As language sleuths, we can conclude that a pet is an animal we can pet.
So. Can I pet a duck? I suppose I can stroke its silky feathers but tickle it under the chin … does it have a chin? Will it playfully nibble on my toes with its cute little bill and do I want it to? If I confide my woes, it might quack back but I don’t know if that will soothe my frazzled nerves. And perhaps a duck enjoys getting its belly scratched but I would be hard pressed to pinpoint exactly where that fowl body part is located.
Maybe a pet duck is someone’s must-have because like Silas Marner and Jay Gatsby, there are all kinds of people in the world, but my suspicion is that this particular duck will not end up on the dinner table. It will instead try to get through TSA at Hilo airport as a comfort support animal on its way to visit famous relatives in Disneyland.
In my quest for real life stories, I have been stumbling over other people’s idea of pets. If a crocodile or an ostrich floats your boat, then by all means indulge yourself, but please keep it away from me. And I implore you to not try to bring it along if you’re flying to our islands.
Yes dear readers, I have been grappling with attempts by some pupule who insist on their pet’s right to accumulate frequent flyer miles. The good news is that the airlines are finally clamping down. But the bad news is that looney tunes on the continent have weird definitions of “pet.”
Let’s not allow them to bring these quirky notions across the ocean because frankly, they’re quackers.
Rochelle delaCruz was born in Hilo, graduated from Hilo High School, then left to go to college. After teaching for 30 years in Seattle, Wash., she retired and returned home to Hawaii. She welcomes your comments at rainysideview@gmail.com. Her column is published the first Monday of each month.
