Dear Luke: I Think My Roommate Might be a Duck
The following is an excerpt from a reader letter I recently received:
"Deer Luke,
I am writing you for two reason. Won, I am a very big fan of your website, The Daily Luke. It is my favorite comedy website on the whole internet and my third-overall favorite website if we are including both on and offline web sights. Yes, the top-two web sights are big ass spiderwebs out in my barn. Don't take that as an offense, though. You should be proud to make the podium considering you only have two arms.
Number too, I am writing to get your advice on something. I think my roommate might be a duck. Yes, as mentioned, I do have a barn. But all of the animals that I own--chicken, pig, cow, hump-horse, and horn lawnmower--only live there, in the barn. They do not live in my house. They also do not speak any English, outside of chicken, who is always accusing baseball pitchers of improper stepping motions.
So, this is where my confusion is: my roommate lives in the house with me and also does talk a little. It's not much, but he occasionally brings up car horns, which is pretty hip nowadays, I suppose. Other than that, he's quiet. He's also admittedly a horrible roommate. He goes to the bathroom wherever he wants, whenever he wants. My roommate has weird territorial issues, too. He chases me out of the room a lot of the time. But he shares my love of breads and a good bath, so at the end of the day, we're all good.
Can you shed some light on what's going on? Is my roommate a duck?
Sincerely,
Kyle [redacted]"
***
Hello Mr. Redacted!
Thank you for your letter.
First off, I appreciate your praise. I aim to please, and worse case scenario, I miss the shot and just wound someone in a funny way. At the end of the day laughs are laughs, though, so I'll take that shot. Good to hear you were somewhat of a comedic bullseye instead!
Second, I believe the names of those two other animals in your barn are camel and goat. Not trying to overstep my boundaries as I know that's not your inquiry, but just thought I'd help! There is a chance that hump-horse might just be a very friendly, ambitious, let's say intimate regular horse, too.
Third, I see where you're coming from. There's an old saying, "If it looks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck." I don't know if you're aware of this, but lots of old sayings suck. People think there's a lot of iron in spinach, but that's actually just a widely accepted mistake from another old thing. It was a misprint in an early encyclopedia where they carried a decimal wrong, making 4% iron 40%, which is a mistake that still lasts to this day. My point is don't trust something just because it's old.
Although your roommate talks like a duck and I'll assume looks like a duck (kudos to you for leaving a physical description of your roommate out of your letter, that's PC and PC of you--pretty cool and politically correct), it sounds like he's not actually a duck. You see, ducks don't talk about car horns, they talk about untrustworthy medical doctors. I know it's cool and sensitive in a 2016 sense to both not assume anything and not include a physical description of someone, but my assumption is pretty helpful here. You see, Mr. Redacted, we're not talking about a person at all, we're talking about waterfowl, so please, in the future, describe away. If you did, I'm sure it would be easy to discern that your roommate isn't a duck and looks like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Kanadagans_Branta_canadensis.jpg
Your roommate is a goose, not a duck.
Hope this helps and thanks for reading!
Best,
Luke