Good grief, twenty teenagers? Yes, our chickens have reached that pubescent stage where their feet are growing faster than their bodies, their voices are cracking, and in accordance with their hairy Persian and Colombian owners, they’ve sprouted unattractive facial feathers. They’re now old enough to venture outdoors into a little fenced area where they’re learning to hunt and peck in the grass. We’ve propped a couple ramps leading through a trap door. Making their way down the plank in the morning, they’re out of control and gangly, like thirteen-year-olds on a dance floor. The rules of personal space go out the window.

Then, in the evening, the little hooligans refuse to come inside. The dowagers tucked into their boxes roll their eyes. “Just you wait, missy,” they cluck. “One of these days, some hawk is gonna swoop in and then you’ll be sorry you didn’t come home at a decent hour.”

On a couple occasions, we’ve had to resort to some benign flag waving to get them corralled up the ramp. They instinctively hate that, as it resembles the wings of a predator, and one of our sons objected to this treatment. To which I responded, “We’re not spanking them with a stick.”

I was referring to the classic children’s book, The Story About Ping. Do you remember it? Published in 1933 by author Marjorie Flack, it is the tale of a little yellow duck who lived with his numerous duck clan aboard a wise-eyed boat on the Yangtze River. One day, Ping is the last duck returning to the boat, and he knows that he will receive the requisite punishment for being last — a quick spank on his behind administered by the master. Scared of the spanking, Ping runs away. He spends the night alone, and when he awakens, his boat is out of sight. Searching for his family, he is captured and nearly eaten. Miraculously, a little boy releases him into the river where he spots his duck clan swimming alongside the wise-eyed boat. Ping accepts the spanking he’d evaded the day before, and is reunited with his family to live happily ever after. 

Because we have no television, no wifi, and it rained all day, we checked the book out of the library and talked about it over dinner. No one liked the ending.

Atticus feels the treatment of Ping is arbitrary and capricious and inherently lawless. The punishment isn’t because a duck is late. It is because a duck is last. Justice must be individualized and based on transparent, fair, and logical reasoning. All sides must state their case. Ping, the master, and the other forty-two aunts, uncles, and cousins all deserve their day in court.

Heather believes Ping is the only character with a shred of humanity. He knows that he is not meant for such degradation. He is looking for something bigger. In the end, he submits to the abuse. Born with abuse, you stick with abuse.

Walter wants to urge these ducks not to walk up the plank at all. They should rise up and spank the master with his own stick. They should become ungovernable and organize themselves into an anarcho-syndicalist commune and take down the imperialist state.

Gary thought Ping was a tragic hero who sacrificed his freedom for fealty to family. Or maybe Ping just really missed his cozy boat with the eyes painted on the side. Either way, Gary sure feels for the little guy.

I think it is a soul crushing book and I hate it. You can teach ducks not to be late but when a line forms, someone must always be last. This has zero to do with duck punctuality. It pits the ducks against each other and destroys any hope for harmony. Not to mention they’ll all eventually start lining up earlier and earlier and then what kind of effed up life is that?

Elizabeth thinks it’s worth a spank or two to be with the ones you love. When it comes to your family, you take the good with the bad.

After dinner, when we went out to close up the chickens, one of the little chicks made a break for freedom. Before you marvel at such a coincidence, consider that we have twenty chicks. Someone was bound to run away. I remember the very early morning a couple decades ago when Atticus packed a suitcase with toy trains and departed for the family next door where his friend Caleigh lived, an only child to two adoring and attentive parents.

What is avoidable is the spanking. Here at Laurentide, we are an imperialist state. We can be arbitrary and capricious. But we don’t use a stick on our chicks. Instead, we lured our little runaway back into the coop with mealworms, and then we reminded Little Miss Ping, as she is now called, that when it comes to your family, you take the good with the bad.