A Rubber Duck to Every Bathroom
This seemed like a very good fixed idea  a long time ago: fanaticism can be rather fun and enjoyable, if it does not lead to any harm. This movement, dedicated to a single idea, only amuses people. This is exactly what it is designed to do. Fortunately, no one takes this movement seriously, except in a humourous manner. This is a cause I can make a difference in, and gives me great joy, and I hope I've made others smile in the process. That is indeed hard currency in this world.

Goals:

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Cami wrote Aug 10th 1998


A picture says more than a thousand words. That is why the Rubber Duck Standard is compressed into the image below/on the left. To be on the safe side, here it is in words:

As rubberduck mannequin the rubber duck from kumiankka.cs.tut.fi by Panze
 


 



  Needless to say, a rubber duck should be used and treated properly. If not, it will caw in a sad manner, and will not greet with a happy "Quack!" those who come into the bathroom. Make sure your rubber duck stays happy by doing the following:
  • Prime Directive: Take your rubber duck to the bath with you at least once a month. For a rubber duck a bath with its master/mistress is heavenly and the reason to live.
  • Habitat: The bathroom. Preferably on the bathtub, but other spots in the bathroom will do. A duck detests sudden changes in its potential energy. So do place the duck in a place where it is safe from falling down to the floor. Don't put the duck in a place which is close to a heat-source (a hot light-bulb, for example) to avoid nasty disfiguration. This will most certainly make it furious.
  • What ever you do, don't allow your rubber duck to become dusty! Play with it. If you don't know how to do that, let someone else play with it.
  • A rubber duck enjoys company. Buy more rubber ducks, but other bath toys will do, too. The favourite sport of the rubber duck is synchronized floating :-)
     


     
     

     
     
      I had a yellow rubber duck when I was a kid. According to my mother it is tucked away in a box somewhere. I want to find that duck and bring it back to its natural habitat, that is my bathroom.
      So all you Freudians, you were right!:-D

      At a later stage in my life, as a student when I finally began to allow myself to be a bit off the beaten track and weird and actually enjoy it :-), my fondness of rubber ducks re-emerged.

      I kept on looking for rubberducks in the stores but found none until I finally found one. It was not in accordance with the standard, but it had to do until I found the Real Thing, which I finally did and I was overjoyed. I now have four rubber ducks in my bathroom.

      Friends moved and moved together and had housewarming parties. As a rubberduckist I wanted to give them rubberducks, because they had everything else that is needed in a household (=they had been on their own for long enough to accumulate a whole set of household essentials (except for the bathroom;-) and non-essentials). I gather the original meaning of housewarming presents was to help the person(s) to equip their home.
      My strange passion has stirred up a fair amount of amusement among my friends, and they have been delighted to receive a rubber duck. This way I want to spare them from the rubber duck trauma, which became so familiar to me before I obtained a rubberduck. Whatever the case, at least this is an original and funny present.
       


 
 
     


 
 
 
       
       
       
       
      References to ducks on Babylon 5
      (as they are aired in Finland and I remember to add them DON'T SPOIL ME!!!)

      Season 1: Chrysalis:
      Londo: "...But this .. this, this, this is like being nibbled to death by ..what are
                  those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet .. go
                  'quack'?"
      Vir: "Cats."
      Londo: "Cats. I'm being nibbled to death by cats."