Mood:
surprisedTopic: "Rubber Ducky" (2)
Tom Bombadil is Frodo's closest neighbor in the Shire. Some time ago, during a frenzy of garden landscaping, Tom placed a rather ordinary birdbath in the middle of his backyard. To encourage feathred visitors to take note, and to perhaps find a purpose for one of those items long saved and rarely used, Tom set a smal rubber duck afloat in the midst of the birdbath.
Frodo immediately recalled a talented, and busty, performer who danced a little dance to the tune "Rubber Ducky" at a certain nightclub on Printer's Alley in Nashville, years ago. Appropriately covered in shaving cream, she found opportunity in an appropriate squeezing of her prominent anatomy whenever the words "Rubber Ducky" made their way into the tune. Perhaps to our avian neighbors, Tom Bombadil's lure would similarly bring joy to an entire species.
One Sunday, not long ago, Frodo was accompanying Fiona and Mick, the Wonder Dog, to their early morning romp on the soccer field of the school in the Shire. Mick, the Wonder Dog, particularly enjoys the hot pursuit of a mini-soccer ball before it enters the net of the goal on either end of the field. Fiona merely searches for discarded cookies, candy, and other detritus which she assumes to be both edible and rewarding. Returning to the Shire after the romp, Frodo noticed several large and raucous crows in the barren trees of winter in the rear of Tom Bombadil's garden. One of the crows, near the top of a tall sweetgum, had something light-colored in its' beak. From that distance, Frodo was unable to ascertain exactly what the thief had garnered. Frodo was well aware that crows are brazen thieves, and that stories abound of car keys, wedding rings, and other precious objects found in discarded crows' nests. Frodo thought no more of it as he needed to tend to the roamings of Fiona, now gagging and disposing of her ill-gotten treasures from the same orifice as entry.
Later that day, while he labored in his own garden, Frodo happened to glance toward the birdbath in Tom Bombadil's backyard. Alas, the rubber ducky was no more. Investigating, Frodo walked into Tom's yard in order to pay greater attention. There, underneath the tree in which the robber crow had perched, Frodo found the errant rubber ducky. After closely examining the crime victim Frodo returned it to Tom Bombadil's birdbath. The crow had evidently found little purpose in either holding the rubber ducky for ransom, or having additional pleasure with her/it. In any event, the crime had been solved and all parties were back where they belonged.
When Frodo recounted the tale to Tom Bombadil, the two of them compared the events to the current state of affairs in the world of humans and halflings. "It is, I suppose," said Tom, "a reflection of the fact that you can't trust anybody these days."
"Well Tom, I think it's something more," said Frodo. "I think that once the crow found out that the rubber ducky had no intrinsic value, that it held little pleasurable potential, and that it wasn't registered to vote, that they spit him out and cast him aside."
The neighbors concluded, half in jest, that the ducknapping reminded them both of the disputed election of 2000. No one will ever know exactly what the crime was, and the criminals got away, with impunity.
Frodo is still thinking about all that shaving cream, and the tune wanders about in his temporal lobe.
