by H. S. Friesen
“Don’t be overheard complaining… not even to yourself”
Marcus Aurelius
One fine June day in 2020, I was at my favourite slough just North of Blackfalds, Alberta. I had been perusing my surroundings to see what type of activity was afoot. I spied some American Coots, farther out on the water. One was in the shallows amongst the reeds and grasses, and the other was on the open water. The distance was considerable but the two birds were a little removed from each other, so their voices were raised in conversation. The acoustics were good, and I was able to pick up on their conversation.
Suddenly, there was a commotion as one of them excitedly pulled one foot out of the water. “George, George,” the female Coot exclaimed excitedly, “Something just touched my foot. I hate that, you know I hate that. Why did you bring me to this miserable swamp, just to have something touch my foot? I should never have believed you that this was a five star establishment. Back home in Possum Bluff, Florida, I would go down to the Saint John’s River and never, ever, did something touch my feet.”
If you have ever seen the size of the feet on an American coot, you would find that statement as incredible as I did. How could you help but bump into something that size?
George looked over his shoulder from where he was swimming, rolled his eyes, sighed and exclaimed! “Good grief, Stephanie, Just bend down and eat it. It’s part of the seafood plate that I ordered for you. You like seafood.”
Stephanie quickly reached down, and snapped up the morsel. “Mmmmm, tadpoles, my favourite. My apologies George, I don’t know what got into me. Long trips to Canada tend to make me a little snarky. I apologize. I just don’t understand why we always have to fly at night, you know I hate night flying.”
“Just enjoy,” said George, as he swam off, rolling his eyes again. “I’ll just go farther over on the slough, out of earshot,” he muttered under his breath.
And now, you know the rest of the story.
Thank you to Howard Friesen for donating this story for AIWC to post.
