The Rubber Duckie Incident

For years, the rubber duckie has ruled the bubbly seas with an iron plastic bill. Soon, however, the evil rubber duckie hegemony over bathtime fun will be lifted.\nThis is because the toy beaver is on its way home to America after 11 years adrift at sea.\nThe sad tale began 11 years ago when a container filled with toy beavers, frogs and turtles was pushed over the side of a cargo ship on its way to Seattle from China. The culprit was a gang of rubber duckies determined not to let America see how much fun the toy beaver could be. \nHappily, the rubber duckies also fell into the Pacific Ocean during their maniacal attempt to keep bath time power.\nSince that tragic event, the platoon of bath time animals has floated along the Alaskan Coast, through the Bering Strait, across the Arctic Ocean and past the point in the North Atlantic where the Titanic sunk. Any day now, many of them will be arriving on the New England coast to terrific cheers of "Long live the beaver!"\n"Some kept going, some turned and headed to Europe," Curtis Ebbesmeyer of Seattle, a retired oceanographer who's been tracking the toys' progress, told the AP. "By now, hundreds should be dispersed along the New England coast."\nHow did this ragtag group of domestic tub animals make this arduous journey? Certainly not because of the rubber duckies, which have turned completely white after years of worrying about giant squids finding rubber tasty. It was, of course, due to the natural bravery of the toy beaver.\nAnd now they're almost home and ready to take over the throne of bath time fun. The toy beaver is the primo toy of choice for the bathtub.\nOne, beavers are simply cooler than ducks.\nTwo, beavers build dams. That's right. Little kids will now have more opportunities than ever to say the word "dam." \nThird, we'll never have to hear Ernie sing the rubber duckie song again.\nThere's a lesson to be learned here, other than the fact that rubber duckies are not to be trusted. For 11 years, the toy beavers have been drifting aimlessly through freezing cold waters when they could have been using their God-given talents to, ummm, float and drift aimlessly in a bathtub. Sure, it wasn't their fault that the evil rubber duckies pushed them off the ship, but that doesn't excuse the tragic loss of bath time fun millions of kids have felt.\nWe are all toy beavers on the inside. Many of us have important choices to make in the next few years. We can either decide to wander aimlessly along the Arctic Ocean, accomplishing nothing -- save scaring a few Eskimos -- or we can just head directly to Seattle instead of going all the way to New England.\nDon't be like the toy beaver. Go to Seattle. Life is too short to waste a chance of being eaten by polar bears.