The Luck of the Duck

One of my client’s has a bookshelf full of trolls with colorful hair, big ears and bulging eyes. They range in size from miniature gumball machine prizes and pencil toppers to dolls over one foot tall. His favorite one has orange hair.

One day his employees, knowing that he could take a joke, kidnapped the carrot-top troll. He good-naturedly asked whoever took it, to please return it. The next morning lying on his desk was a ransom note. On it was written that his buddy, the new office mascot, had been kidnapped. Attached to the note was a photo of the troll standing beside the Empire State Building.

Everyone in the office played along with the joke. The company has offices worldwide and when someone was going on a business trip, they would take the troll with them. Soon pictures of it in pubs in Germany and with Big Ben in England were sent back to the manager. The troll had a busy travel schedule. Sometimes one person would hand it off in the airport so that it could make the journey to the next location. After a full year of travel, it was finally returned with many colorful stories about this well-travelled troll.

Adopting a mascot connects a group of people by giving them a common prank to play. Tim’s brother, sisters and their spouses have an unusual item that could be considered the family mascot.

Their mother had a “good luck duck” that was soft, yellow and white. One time she put it in Catharine’s suitcase as she was leaving to return home. Catharine then decided that this duck would be gifted to the next sibling or parent who came to visit her, unbeknownst to them.

Catharine is sneaky when she passes it off to someone else. At the end of one visit, I carefully propped the duck on her bed pillow with a “gotcha” note after our suitcases were safely in the car. At the last minute, Catharine ran back into the house, saying something about her purse. Lo and behold, when I returned home and opened my suitcase, the duck greeted me!

We have continued the tradition for over ten years, even after Tim’s mother passed away. We have not seen the duck since we sent it in a Christmas package to his older sister. But last week the duck reared its little beak when Tim was opening his birthday presents in West Virginia.

For today’s gift, we slipped the duck into his brother’s suitcase. It is a fun way to keep the in-laws and out-laws connected across the miles. Who knows where the duck may reappear. We always look forward to creative ways to return the “luck of the duck” to an unsuspecting family member.

In Giving,

Robin