If it Looks Like a Duck

While my daughter was at school yesterday, I was given a very important assignment - purchase a duck webkinz for her friend who was having a birthday slumber party that night.  My daughter was so concerned I would get her request wrong that she actually drew me a picture of the duck and slipped it into my pocket.

After dropping her off at school, I worked all day and by the time I turned around, about five hours had passed and I hadn't yet picked up the present.  And so, for a few fleeting moments, I stepped away from my keyboard, hopped in my car and drove to the closest place I could find that I thought carried the brand spankin' new webkinz duck.

I arrived at a trendy store in my neighborhood populated by the snottiest teenagers I've ever met.  Since the boutique normally sells overpriced jeans, t-shirts, outerwear and dresses for kids and teens, they had no use for little old me who was searching in the back of the store for a duck webkinz.  As I dug through the pile of stuffed animals, I found what I thought was the duck my daughter had asked for.  I proudly walked it up to the register and when one of the girls told me they were on sale and were charging $20 for two webkinz, I thought I had found the bargain of the century and picked up a unicorn to add to my perfect birthday gift.

As I was checking out, I decided to make a little small talk with the pretentious teens behind the register.

"I'm so glad I didn't have to drive all over town for that duck webkinz," I blurted.

"Oh, you mean the platypus?" commented one of the girls, whose hair was hanging over one eye - I believe that was some kind of hair fashion statement, but to me, it just looked weird and messy.

"Platypus?  You mean there are other ducks?" I responded, having a sinking feeling in my stomach that I bought the wrong webkinz.

"Oh I don't know if there are other ducks, we just have this one," the teen responded, as she handed me a cellophane bag with my tissue paper wrapped webkinz tucked inside.

When I returned to the school to pick up my daughter, she immediately asked me the telltale question.

"Did you get the duck?"

"Sure I got the duck, it's in the house."

"Well what does it look like?  Does it have chubby cheeks?"

"It kind of has a long neck."

"Mommy!!!!  That's not the duck.  That's Google, the Platypus!!!  We need to get the duck.  Where did you get that webkinz?"

I told her the name of the store and she knew in an instant where I had gone wrong.

"Mommy, that store only sells old webkinz.  The platypus is from last year!"

Mystery solved.  The reason that overpriced store was selling webkinz at a cheaper price was because all they had were the outdated stuffed animals that no kid who is plugged into the webkinz craze would purchase in a million years.  What a rip off.

So what did we do after my daughter realized I had inadvertently purchased the wrong duck?  We hopped in the car of course and zipped off to the neighborhood toy store, arriving minutes before they closed.

As my daughter ran inside and scanned the shelves, she instantly found it. 

"The last duck!!!  We found the last duck!!!"

After asking the man at the cash register for what seemed like the Hope Diamond, he handed it over and my daughter shared the story of her mothers duck blunder.

"I'm so glad you have the duck.  My mom bought the wrong one and I knew that you had the duck and that's what my friend wanted for her birthday.  I can't believe we got the last duck!"  

With our crisis averted, we took our duck, went on our merry way and headed off to the slumber party and the moment we arrived, my daughter's friend took the package out of her hands, ripped off the paper and was thrilled to receive her duck.  Don't kids wait until after cake to open presents anymore?  With that, I knew I had made my daughter's night because she had selected the right gift and I went home to figure out what I was going to do with Google the Platypus.

Moral of the story...just because it looks like a duck, doesn't necessarily mean it's the right duck.