a grand rescue

well, here's a small event that made my wednesday:

my favorite hannah singer and i went to the zoo, and we saw this mama duck and her eight little baby ducklings walking down the path. they were just so stinking adorable that we followed them for a while. and then--and then! one of the ducklings waddled right into a drainage grate (you know--the kind you see on the side of the road). it just wandered right onto the grate, lost its footing, and for a moment only its tiny little head was visible, wide-eyed in terror. and then it slipped down into the dark, scary old sewer. oh! oh! oh! i saw it! its pathetic yelping cleary wafted up through the ground.

"OH! HANNAH! what are we gonna do??" i said.

we fetched a zoo employee to help us. he was skinny and had duct tape wrapped around his left sneaker. "on average, only half of the ducklings survive," he told us. after surveying the scene, he braced himself against the ground and began to tug at the grate. i thought it was hopeless: the thing might as well've been the foundation of some ancient fortress. it was a bit rusty and the earth had begun to swallow up its edges. but lo and behold, he pulled the darn thing right up, like superman. he reached down, gently scooped the duckling up, and set him in the grass. "there ya go, little buddy," he said.

we thanked him and he walked away, smiling, his khakis heroically peppered with fresh dirt.