Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Gobble Gobble - Dave Raises the Turkey & Dave and the Duck

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

“Dave stared at the duck in disbelief. The duck stared back at him.”This week, we’re back talking about birds again, with two of Stuart McLean's hilarious stories about Dave and… poultry. Yes, this week’s theme is quite specific! Our first story is one you may not have heard before: Dave decides to try his hand at small-scale poultry farming… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

from the apostrophe podcast network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. We've got two funny stories for you today. about Dave and birds. Dave and poultry in particular. Is it just me or have we talked about birds a lot already on this podcast? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that a bunch of Dave's shenanigans are not just bird related but are specifically poultry related. I have no idea what to think about that. I think it's probably better if none of us think about that very much at all. Just don't go there. I'm kidding. Of course, I know exactly where this came from, and I'm sure

you do too. This poultry thing started the year that Dave cooked the turkey. That was the story that made Christmas a bit of a thing at the vinyl cafe, but it wasn't the only turkey story in Dave's family. There's also this one. This is Stuart McLean talking about, well, you'll see. This is the season of traditions. This is the time of the year when we come together with our families and our friends in the fellowship of tradition. We all have traditions at this time of year, little traditions and big traditions. And it's no different at Dave and Morley's house.

Since the days of the pagans, the traditions of the winter solstice have always circled around life. And so it is every year at Dave and Morley's house that this season of fellowship begins when Dave climbs up on the roof and strings Christmas lights on the TV antenna. An antenna that Dave has left strapped to his chimney just for this reason. There are other traditions, big ones and small ones. The neighborhood lot where Dave buys the tree, the railing where Morley hangs the stockings.

And of course, Christmas dinner. The dinner tradition began that fateful December when Dave agreed to cook the family turkey. That was the year Dave forgot to buy the turkey, and he had to rush out on Christmas Eve, and he found one, as some of you obviously remember, found one around midnight frozen tighter than a cannonball, and he spent the rest of that Christmas Eve and most of Christmas morning in the basement, defrosting it with an electric blanket and hair dryer. Ever since then, it's been Dave's job to cook the turkey. It's a family tradition.

And every year, Dave has tried to recreate the excitement of that first turkey. Dave and the turkey have become part family folklore and part tradition. And like all traditions, informed by two imperatives, the impulse to continue it and the urge to pass it on. This year, Dave wanted to include his son, Sam, in the tradition of the turkey. He was thinking of both of them worked on this together. It would give them an opportunity to, well, to work on it together. He racked his brain about what that something might be.

It came to him one quiet afternoon at his record store. He was sitting in front of his computer. he was drifting around the net looking for Christmas ideas when he stumbled on Paul Boyer's sight about home-grown heritage turkeys. Holy crawl.

That was it. This year, Dave wouldn't only cook the turkey. He'd raise it. It was perfect on so many levels. Best of all, it would give Dave an opportunity to teach Sam

some of the great lessons that he had learned himself when he was a young boy, and he worked in the summers on Old Man McCauley's farm, the responsibility of caring for living things, the discipline of rising early, and the satisfaction that comes with dirty hands at the end of a hard day's work. Dave remembered Old Man McCauley climbing onto his tractor. Old Man McCauley spitting into his hands, and rubbing them together every time he got ready to tackle a big job.

Man's got to do what a man's got to do, Davy. Hard to teach your son those kind of lessons when you don't live on a farm. Dave went online and ordered a bourbon red, an old-fashioned heritage turkey, a bird without genetic modifications, bird that could still fly. Don't be getting ahead of me. This is my story.

Paul Boyer said that the bourbon red was his all-time favorite turkey. Said that by raising a bourbon red, Dave and Sam would be helping preserve the biological diversity of the world. It arrived by UPS. Came in a huge crate. Dave had it delivered to the store He took Sam down after supper I have something I want you to see he said It was only a few weeks old

Looked more like a baby chick than a baby turkey Sam said wow Then he said Does mom know about this Dave waved his hand over the crate Dave said it's a surprise Then Dave said that's something you should know about women they like surprises.

Sam reached down to pet the baby turkey's downy head. He's so cute, said Sam. Dave grabbed his hand and pulled it out. This isn't a pet, said Dave. We're being farmers. We can't get attached to this bird. They brought the turkey home in the trunk of the car. They set it up in the garage.

in Arthur's old dog cage, back behind Dave's mother-in-law, Nancy's old Buick, back behind the workbench and the tires and the old boxes of books. Okay, Dave should have told morally what they were up to. But Dave was waiting for the perfect time. He didn't stop to wonder what possibly would constitute the perfect time for a man to tell his wife that they were sharing their garage with a turkey. Anyway, there'd be lots of time for that. Morley never went in the garage.

They divided the chores. Sam's job would be the cleaning, the mucking out. Same job Dave used to do for old man Macaulay. Dave would do the feeding. He filled the turkey's bowl with the bag of pellets that he had hidden in the trunk of Nancy's old car. The turkey grew at an alarming rate. Looks like we're doing a good job, said Dave one night, as he and Sam slipped out of the garage.

We got ourselves a healthy bird. We should be proud of ourselves. Well, they were proud of themselves, and everything continued to go well. Until the afternoon, Sam opened the cage door, wanted to clean it out, and there was a great squawking and scrabbling, and the turkey came screaming towards them with his wings flapping, and he flew out the cage and up into the rafters. Sam went into the house and phoned his dad at work.

Dave came home, and he surveyed the garage, and he said, no problem. And he got the step-ladder out, and he set it up under the bird. Spat into his hands and rubbed them together. When the turkey saw Dave coming up the ladder, turkey started to shake. Bird scared, said Dave. felt good to teach his son things like this. Trouble was, the turkey wasn't scared. Shake is what the turkey did before he.

Now, how do I say this? Exactly. Sam did his best to help clean his father off. Don't worry, Dad, said Sam. It smells worse than it looks. The thought of wrestling the turkey back into the cage seemed preposterous. Dave said, we're going to give him the run of the garage. He was getting too big for the cage anyway.

So the turkey settled into the overhead rafters. Whenever one of them came in the garage, the turkey would gobble loudly and start shaking. So Dave started taking an umbrella in there with him. An umbrella, said Sam. Man's got to do what a man's got to do, said Dave. It just wasn't working out exactly the way David imagined. But he and Sam were doing this thing together, and together they came up with a name for the turkey.

They named the turkey trouble. Only real problem was the growing smell. It wasn't altogether an unpleasant smell, sort of essence of barn. Sam was doing his best to keep it under control and so far Morley hadn't noticed a thing and she didn't

well not until the Monday afternoon when home alone Morley headed out to the garage with a box of Christmas presents to where she always hides her presents in the trunk of her mother's Buick Morley opened the garage door and she stopped dead in her tracks

the garage smelled like an outhouse she stood by the door gagging and then she heard a loud rustle and she knew one thing she knew what she wasn't going to do and that was stick around she went back to the house and she called an exterminator forty minutes later a middle-aged man wearing a blue zip-up jacket knocked on the kitchen door we have pests don't we said morley the man was covered in feathers there were feathers under his hat and there were feathers in the bib of his overalls and there were feathers sticking out the top of his boots man looked like he had been fighting with a duvet you don't have pests said the man

he was spitting feathers you have poultry When Dave got home that night The house was unusually still His daughter, Stephanie, was sitting alone at the kitchen table eating a bowl of soup Mom's upstairs, said Stephanie. Mom wants you to go upstairs.

She wants to talk to you. As Dave headed up the stairs, Stephanie said one more thing. Stephanie said, gobble, gobble. Well, Dave and Morley talked upstairs, Sam and Stephanie, We're alone in the kitchen. I don't get it, said Sam to his older sister. Dad said women like surprises. Sure, said Stephanie, especially when they involve livestock.

Very next night, Morley woke up in the dead of the night. It was Arthur, the dog who woke her. Arthur was growling. Morley opened her eyes. Arthur had his paws on their bedroom. window. Arthur had pulled himself up and was staring out their bedroom window into the backyard. Morley got out of bed and joined Arthur at the window. Dave, she said, staring out into the night. Their garage was surrounded. There were two huge raccoons, pack of cats and a

wolf. That's not a wolf, said Dave. That's only a German shepherd. Oh, said Morley, imagine my relief. Morley went back to bed. Dave headed downstairs. Dave stood on the deck and he slammed the back door a couple of times. Dog disappeared in a flash.

The cats all scattered. The raccoons, however, turned and started to waddle towards Dave like a pair of hoodlums. Dave skirted the raccoons, and he opened the garage door, and the turkey flapped out and over the back fence and disappeared into the night. And of all the trees in the neighborhood, the turkey had to land in the tree that belonged to Dave's neighborhood nemesis, Mary Turlington. The raccoons followed Dave over the fence. It was 3 a.m. when their yowls woke Mary. It was 3 in the morning when Mary flounced out a bed and looked out her bedroom window and saw a strange man in her apple tree, in pajamas.

The man had a flashlight in his mouth and an open umbrella in his free hand. He was kicking at a raccoon who seemed to be clying up the tree behind him. Mary called the police. The sirens scared trouble, and trouble flew back to the garage, leaving Dave alone in the tree. When Dave climbed down, the police were waiting for him. The younger cop folded his hands on his chest

and said, Now you're not looking for trouble, are you, sir? When Dave finally got home, his house was locked up tighter than a drum. Spent the rest of that night in the garage under a blanket and an umbrella. Next evening, he and Sam moved Arthur, the dog, out to the garage for the overnight shift. Arthur went under protest, whining and pulling on his leash, but Dave didn't pay him any attention.

Dave just stared at his dog and said, get in there. This is why you were domesticated. As soon as the turkey saw the dog, he started to shake. Next morning, Dave headed to the garage before. breakfast. Sam was already there. Sam was sitting on the hood of his grandmother's car, staring at the turkey. Trouble was sitting in the far corner of the garage on a nest of shredded newspaper. Where's Arthur? said Dave. Sam pointed. The turkey lifted a wing. Arthur was snuggled beside him. Arthur gave one complacent and completely happy wag of his tale. And so

the days passed and the days became weeks Arthur spent every night in the garage with trouble both of them apparently happy with the arrangement. Pretty soon the snow began and before Dave knew it all the old Christmas tunes were on the radio

and the decorations were up and everything got busy. There were part of and there was shopping and there was baking to be done and great comings and goings. Saturday before Christmas, Sam spent a couple of hours working in the garage, mucking the floor and hauling in fresh straw. This was just the way David imagined it. Birds doing well, said Dave. What do you think? Twenty-two pounds at harvest? Sam stopped sweeping, looked up at his dad.

what do you mean he said harvest Dave had arranged to deliver trouble to a butcher two days before Christmas night before the appointment Dave headed out the door with Arthur for their nightly walk Sam said can I come it was pretty late

but Sam had been pretty distant since their talk about harvest so Dave said sure before they reached the sidewalk Arthur turned around and dragged Dave in the opposite direction. He dragged him to the garage door and he stood there without moving. Dave gave the leash an impatient tug, but Arthur wouldn't budge. Sam said, maybe something's wrong. So Dave opened the garage door and Arthur pulled them through it, barking.

Trouble flapped up to them, well, flapped up to Arthur. And then the two of them, the turkey and the dog, stood by the door, side by side, staring up a day. Sam said, Arthur wants to bring trouble. Dave said, we can't do that. Sam said, why not? It was well past 11. Who could they possibly run into?

So Dave tied a metal ring around the turkey's neck with a little piece of leather. and Sam clipped one of Arthur's old leashes to the ring, and off they had it. Trouble took to the leash as if he had done this all his life, standing patiently and staring ahead while Arthur sniffed at the trees and gobbling along between stops. They hadn't got more than a few blocks from home when the four of them rounded a corner and ran smack into Mary Turlington.

Mary lurched to a halt, clutched her briefcase to her chest, glanced down at the turkey, and then fixed Dave in a withering stare. Mary said, honestly, David. Dave felt himself engulfed by a diminishing wave of embarrassment. It was Sam who stepped in and tried to protect his father. It was Sam who pointed at the turkey and said, free range. And suddenly the turkey startled, pulled loose and flapped up into the branches of the tree above them.

Mary glanced at Sam with pity. Then she looked up at trouble sitting on the branch above her. Mary said, David, that poor little bird is terrified. It's shaking like a leaf. A minute later, Mary Turlington was storming down the street. And Sam turned to his father and he said, It doesn't smell as bad as it looks. As soon as she was out of sight, Arthur barked and trouble dropped out of the tree.

Good dog, said Dave. Good turkey, said Sam. Leading over and scratching its chest. When they got home, Dave handed Sam both leashes. It had started snow. Dave pointed at the garage. He said, you take them out. You settle them down.

Morley was watching from the bedroom as her son juggled the animals earnestly through the garage door. She was standing by the window when Dave came upstairs. Who would have guessed, she said. Yeah, I said, Dave, I just don't know what I'm going to do. Morley said, you're having second. thoughts about the turkey. They'd never forgive me, said Dave. Morley said they. Sam said Dave, and Arthur. So the next morning, Dave and Sam took trouble to a petting zoo. How was it, said Morley, when they got home? It was okay, said Dave. Sam was upstairs. They were alone in the

kitchen. But? said Morley. I don't know, said Dave. Old man McCauley never took a turkey to a petting zoo. Dave looked at his wife and he shrugged. Morley said, get over it. I will, said Dave. I guess I'm just worried about Sam. I feel like I let him down. Morley and Dave didn't talk turkey again until Christmas Eve. It wasn't until the presents were under the tree and the kids were in bed that Morley asked Dave about Christmas dinner. What do you mean, said Dave? Him not being quite as fast as you. I haven't done a thing, said Morley.

I was expecting you to come up with plan B. Dave looked at his bedside clock and then he looked at Morley in disbelief and then Dave said oh no not this again Morley smiled at him sweetly too sweetly and then she said Merry Christmas Dave and she rolled over and she went to sleep Dave got up and he got dressed and he headed downstairs and he went out

the front door into the dark, cold night. None of this had worked out the way he had planned. He kicked at the snow on the sidewalk, and he walked back to the all-night supermarket. He was back in a half an hour with a supermarket turkey frozen as tight as a cannonball. And when he got home, there was Sam sitting on the front steps in his Spider-Man pajamas and his winter coat. it was after midnight what are you doing up said Dave Sam shrugged waiting for you said Sam how come said Dave Sam said

man's got to do what a man's got to do right right said Dave and he looked down at his son and he smiled and he said let's go we got work to do and the two of them headed in side and downstairs into the basement. Dave, with a frozen turkey under one arm, a hair dryer under the other, and a bottle of scotch tucked into the crook of his elbow. Do you think we're going to have to stay up all night, said Sam, as his dad plugged in the hairdriar? Probably, said Dave.

It's sort of a tradition. Thank you. That was the story we called Dave Raises the Turkey. It was recorded in 2006. My favorite part of that story is the gobble, gobble. I love the tone of Stuart's voice when he says it. Gobble, gobble. Isn't it hilarious?

Let me hear it again. Gobble, gobble, gobble. I used to joke with Stuart that I was going to make that sound, that part right there, his ringtone. Like, wouldn't that be amazing if every single time Stuart McLean called me, it would just be him going, gobble, gobble. Anyway, we have a lot of wild turkeys who live in our neighborhood and visit my yard. We see them a lot at this time of year now that the leaves are down, especially in the morning on the way into school. And every single time I see one, all of us, me, Eloise, Annabel, all three of us do the gobble, at the top of our

lungs. I don't know why. It just makes me happy. Anyway, enough of this nonsense. We're going to take a short break right now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another story and no more gobbles. I promise, I am done. The second half of this pod will be gobble free. Welcome back. Time for our second story now. More poultry. This is Stuart McLean with Dave and the Duck. One idle morning last month, Dave was sitting behind the counter in his record store, fiddling unconsciously with his wedding ring when he realized first with mild interest and then with growing alarm that he couldn't get the ring off his finger. Not that he wanted to. Until that is, he noticed he couldn't remove it, and then he wanted to very, very much. He tugged and he twisted the ring until his finger turned red and puffy,

and then he put his finger in his mouth, and he tried to pull a ring off with his teeth. And that was the moment, the moment when Dave was sitting alone in his store with his finger in his mouth, that he entered the world of irrational fear. In the blink of an eye, his store felt airless, as if all the oxygen had been used up. as if there was no air left to breathe. And in the blink of an eye, Dave was overcome with the need to move, as if the only way to get air into his lungs was by moving. And still, the ring wouldn't budge.

He locked up and he flipped a sign into the record store window that read, Be Right Back. And he hurried down the street, twisting the ring as he went. Well, he didn't have a clue where he was heading. He was too overwhelmed. by a sense of the world collapsing in upon him, too overwhelmed by the need to get going to pay any attention to where he was going to. He called Morley from a payphone about 15 minutes later. I can't get my wedding ring off, he said. Not that I want to, added Dave into the silence,

or need to or anything, said Dave. The knowledge that he was talking to his wife was calming him down. It's uncomfortable, he said, later that night as they sat in the kitchen after supper. It's like an itch you can't reach. Morley took his hand and hers, and Dave felt the panic returning, looming like a swamp monster over some swamper eyes that he thought was far away, but turned out to be right there in his kitchen. Most of all, he needed to get the ring off his finger or he was going to go crazy. You're not the shape you used to be, Morley was saying.

There's been movement. This happens. You could have it sized, said Morley. They can make it bigger. He went to a jeweler before he went to work the next morning. It's a nice ring, said the jeweler. We had it made, said Dave. It's one of a kind.

The jeweler said, you can have it back in a week. That night, Dave showed Morley the indentation on his finger where the ring had been. It was like a phantom ring. Feels good to have it off, he told Morley. They had been married 23 years. Morley's eyes narrowed, but only imperceptibly. I've had that ring on my hand almost as long as I haven't, Dave said it. It felt like it was squeezing me.

oh said morley oh was all she said then things shifted again it started to bother dave that it bothered him he said i'm so set in my ways that all it takes is a stupid ring to throw me off kilter i'm fat and i'm almost 50 and every morning i have orange juice and cereal for breakfast at more or less the same time and more or less the same place, and I take the same tree sandwiches to lunch every day. And look, he said, pulling his sweater up over his stomach. Every time I wear this shirt, I wear this sweater. Morley didn't say anything.

But what she thought was stupid ring? It's a stupid ring? By the week's end, Dave wasn't talking about the ring anymore. He knew enough to keep quiet about it. By the week's end, he had noticed that every time he brought up the ring, Morley would get cranky. He got the ring back a week before he left for Nova Scotia. His sister, Annie, had called and said Elizabeth had a stroke. His father's sister, Elizabeth.

Annie said, I have to go to Boston for a week. I think you should come. He went the following Monday. Morley drove him to the airport. as Dave reached into the back seat for the bag Morley noticed the ring on his finger and she smiled I love you she said look after Elizabeth

he checked into the Lord Nelson Hotel and he went right away to the hospital Elizabeth was confused at first she recognized him then she had no idea who he was the doctor said it's early don't worry she's going to be okay the next morning coming down in the elevator he realized he had locked his key in his room. He would get one at the front desk later. It was early. He went for a walk and bought a book at one of the bookstores near his hotel, and then he wandered into the public gardens. He sat on a bench for a while near the bandstand, and then he bought a bag

of peanuts in a plastic bag, and in a preoccupied not paying attention sort of way, he began to feed them to a duck who was hanging around his bench. Before long, Dave had a full cluster of ducks squabbling for peanuts. It made him happy just to be sitting there feeding ducks. He was trying to be fair about it. He was trying to spread the nuts around so all the ducks had a chance, not only the aggressive ones. And there was one tentative duck on the edge of the circle, constantly being cut out. Dave reached down into his bag and nuts and threw some to the duck on the edge, and the other ducks turned and charged furiously towards it. And in the middle of the commotion, Dave caught a brief flash of metal in the sunlight amongst his peanuts on the

ground, and he thought some poor sod has lost a ring. And then he felt for his own ring. And to his horror, he felt only finger, and he realized he was the poor sod. That was his ring glinting in the sun, and he looked again and he realized to his horror that his ring had just been gobbled up by the hungry left-out duck. Dave stared at the duck in dumb disbelief. The duck was staring back at him. Dave dropped his bag in nuts, and he lunged at the duck. The duck squawked in outrage and fluttered about full.

five feet in the air. It landed in the middle of a new group of ducks on the other side of the path. Dave knew that if he looked away for even an instant, he wouldn't be able to tell his duck from the other ducks. The duck stood up on its legs and began to flap its wings. It looked like it was going to take off. In desperation, Dave pulled off his jacket and flung it in the air. For an instant, the jacket hung in the air like a shadow, and then it enveloped. the bird, and there was a moment of confusion and feathers and squawks, and then Dave was standing in the park with a duck wrapped in his jacket. A duck tucked under his arm like a loaf of bread. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed. There was a woman holding the hand of a small

boy. She was staring at him in horror. What are you going to do with that duck, she said? Dave had no idea what he was going to do with a duck. Roasted, he said, as he strode past her. He knew he had to get out of the park as quickly as he could. The duck was surprisingly quiet as they crossed South Park Road, surprisingly well-behaved. The duck seemed relatively happy under the coat.

Dave made it all away to the hotel and across the hotel lobby and almost to the elevators before he remembered he didn't have his room key. He lined up at the front desk. Remembering that this wasn't the first time. he had stood in front of a hotel clerk with a bird under his arm. The clerk looked down to check his name on the hotel computer, and Dave tried to rearrange the duck, and the duck quacked.

The clerk looked up abruptly. Dave said, I beg your pardon, excuse me. He squeezed the duck against He squeezed the duck against his body As he walked across the lobby Apparently he squeezed too hard Now, people sometimes use the expression as loose as a goose. Not, however, people who know about these things.

People who know about these things know that a goose dingleberry comes out pretty well packed. A duck dump, on the other hand, comes out well as loose as a goose. Once the elevator doors had closed by, behind them and Dave and his duck had a moment of privacy. Dave opened his jacket to see what was going on, which is something he wouldn't do if he was able to do it over again. As soon as the duck saw the elevator lights, it began to beat its wings furiously. In an instant, the quiet duck became a wiggling mass of kicking and quacking feathers. It became a scratching and biting feathers. It became a scratching and biting. duck. When the elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, Dave

was barely holding on to the duck by its little duck feet while it beat him mercilessly with its wings. The elderly couple waiting for the elevator. Didn't say a word. Not to Dave. Not to each other.

didn't step forward into the elevator, nor did they step back. They just stood motionless and speechless. They stood staring as the feathers flew when the elevator doors first opened and then closed. Two floors later, when the elevator doors opened again, the duck gave Dave a mighty whack with a wing, and Dave lost his grip for an instant, and suddenly the duck was loose. Suddenly it was flying down the corridor with Dave in pursuit. He rounded the corner at the end of the hall, and he had already taken three steps before he stopped, and he gasped, and he spun in the air and headed back the way he had come. The tables had been turned. The duck was coming towards him with fire in its eyes. Dave lurched back down the corridor, bouncing off a fire extinguisher, glancing over his shoulder,

looking for an open door, thinking as he heard the beat of the wings that this was closer than he ever wanted to get to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. It took 12 minutes of utter madness before he got the duck under his arm and into his room, and then the duck bit him and the chase was on again. around and around the bedroom, Dave after the duck, the duck after Dave, the two of them with enough adrenaline coursing through their bodies to fuel a British soccer riot. When Dave had finally corralled the duck into the bathroom, and the bathroom door was shut behind it, there were feathers and duck muck everywhere.

It took Dave almost an hour to clean up. He checked each duck defilement for his ring, and then he collapsed into the winged. back chair in the corner of his bedroom and he stared at his empty finger. He looked at the closed bathroom door. It was eerily quiet in there. He got up and he cracked the door to see what was going on. The duck had pushed one of the hotel towels up against the edge of the tub and had fashioned a sort of nest. It seemed content as Dave slipped into the bathroom. It's nice in here, isn't it? said Dave.

La said the duck Dave checked each do-do in the bathroom but there was no ring there either he filled up the tub with water and he lay on the bed wondering what he should do next the duck seemed to have settled comfortably ever since it had made its nest

Dave cracked the bathroom door and he shrugged as the duck waddled into the bedroom It began pecking at the carpet. Dave got some corn chips from the mini bar and left them in a pile near the television. He could feel a wave of panic building again. Morley would be furious if she knew where the ring was, he thought. He got up and he looked at the duck.

This isn't about us, he said. It's about my wife. If I feel like this, he said, imagine what my wife would feel like. I'm doing this for her. He put the duck back in the bathroom and a do-not-disturb sign on his door and he went to the hospital

and when he came back at dinner time there was duck slop everywhere but still no ring he opened the bathroom door and he phoned room service and ordered himself a beer and a half a dozen oysters on the shell when the duck saw the oysters

she ran across the room and sat at his feet so we ordered her a dozen and they watched the early news together after the news he went through the latest mound of duck dirt her production was beyond belief at this rate he figured the time from Bill to Butt couldn't be more than 24 hours he ordered another dozen oysters and they watched the Simpsons

Dave had seen the episode but the duck seemed to like it After supper, he went to the library and he learned that everything a duck ingests goes into its crop before it goes into its stomach. And he read that the crop is a muscular processing plant full of little stones which grind the food before it's digested. According to the book, he read Dave's Ring would be ground to gold dust before he'd ever see it. Or more likely it would just stay in the duck's crop until the duck died. He went back to the hotel room and he wrapped the duck back up. in his fouled jacket, and he took her across the street to the public gardens, and he let

her go. And when he put her down on the path, she flapped her wings a few times and then waddled away without a backward glance. Good luck, said Dave. She didn't seem to want it. As he watched her slip into the brush, Dave wondered where his ring would end up, and who would find it, and how long from now and what they would think, what story they would make up when they found the ring. He didn't sleep well, wondering what he would tell Morley about the ring, worrying about what she would say. Early in the morning, he took his jacket to the front desk and asked the concierge if he could have it cleaned. The concierge stared at the foul jacket, and his lip began to curl. It's clam chowder, said Dave.

Of course, said the concierge, flicking a feather off the counter with disdain. He visited Elizabeth. She was getting clearer each day. The doctor told him she would go to rehab for at least a few months. Dave told Elizabeth he had to go home. I'll be back in a month, he told her. At lunch, he went to a jewelry shop not far from the hotel, and with a heavy heart bought an extravagant silver bracelet for Morley.

He'd never bought her jewelry in his life. The store, the clerk, and the enormous quantity of jewelry overwhelmed him. He almost fled without buying anything. But the clerk was fussing with him with such a tentativeness that Dave didn't want to disappoint him. He finally chose a silver bracelet. It cost a small fortune. But if he was going to go home empty-handed, he couldn't go empty-handed.

He thought it was a pretty bracelet, but he wasn't sure. sure. Morley would have to tell him. He went back to the hospital to see Elizabeth one last time, but she was asleep, and he didn't wake her. He went to the hotel to pick up his jacket. He had two hours before his plane took off. When he got there, he couldn't find his ticket stub, and he looked at the concierge hopelessly. It's all right, said the concierge with a smirk. I remember you. Clam chowder. He handed Dave the jacket on a hanger and a small envelope. The cleaners found a ring in your pocket, he said.

I imagine you'd want to wear it home. Dave had time to take the hotel bus to the airport. As they pulled by the pocket, In public gardens, he put the ring back on his finger and stared at it. 23 years was a long time. He didn't have any regrets. He had a window seat on the plane and he was served a surprisingly good meal. He had two glasses of wine with his supper and a drink later.

He flew the final hour with his face pressed to the window, watching the sun setting ahead of them, ahead of them and holding his bracelet in his hands thinking nothing happens without a reason. He was holding the bracelet as the wheels bit into the runway. It made him anxious to hold it, but it was a new kind of anxiety. It felt fresh and exciting. He had never done anything like this before. It made him happy just to hold it. Thank you. That was the story we called Dave and the Duck. Such a funny story, but the ending of that gets me every time.

I really, really love that ending. And it so perfectly captures one of my favorite feelings, that feeling of floating in the air on an airplane above the clouds and the perspective that gives you on your own life and the world. All right, that's it for today, but we'll be back here next week with two more Dave and Morley stories. You got a little festive taster today, but next week, and all through December, we'll be playing all Christmas stories. Stories like this one. And then he had another idea.

Not only would he bleach his hair, he would bleach his beard at the same time. He took a deep breath of air. He dipped his whole head into the sink. His scalp began to tingle. Not an unpleasant feeling. At first. At first, it was rather invigorating. It was invigorating, that is, until it began to sting.

Began to sting, and then the stinging moved on to pain. And Dave did a little dance trying to distract himself, shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. His head still bent into the water, determined to go the full five minutes and because he was concentrating so hard at staying the whole five minutes because he envisioned the bleach

slowly working at Santa Magic on his hair when Arthur the dog came up quietly behind him when Arthur the dog fascinated by Dave's protruding dancing jiggling bottom when Arthur came up behind him and gave Dave's bottom a quick little sniff with his wet nose a little prod that said

Hey there That's next week on the podcast I hope you'll join us Backstage at the Final Cafe is part of the apostrophe podcast network The recording engineer is Gobble, Cogble Greg to Clute

Damn it I broke my no gobble promise. I'm really sorry about that. It was just too good. Who couldn't give Greg a little gobble, gobble, Greg De Clout? The music is by Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis, Gopoggleg, Greg to Clute, and me just melted. Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now. Gobble, gobble.