'It's Fun, Our Daughter's Ducks Are Like Our Grandducks!'

"Nettie always begged us to get her ducks when she was a little girl, and we just thought that was insane, obviously. Ducks are not pets. Even if you live on a farm, they're not pets. And we didn't, we lived in Evanston. So obviously we never gave in on the duck question, and we thought, well, she's just a kid, she'll get older and realize how silly and impractical it would be to try to keep ducks in the city. Either that, or she'd just forget about the idea completely. Then she moved out on her own and...well, joke's on us!

"The thing is -- and I'm sure she told you this herself -- a duck is not like a dog or a cat. You can't potty-train a duck, ever. A duck is never going to learn how to communicate with you that it needs to go outside and make. You know that expression, 'Like-- uh, like doody through a goose'? It also applies to ducks, which is why Nettie has to keep diapers on Victor and Ming Mei.

"I guess I thought that by the time she was this age, Nettie might be buying diapers for our grandchild! Instead, the diapers are for a couple of ducks. And she has to cut holes in them for their tails. And she tries to cover up that whole...situation with the little costumes, which are so...so cute.

"Most of the time Nettie is on top of the diapers, but you know, the diapers and the costumes have holes for the ducks' tails, like I said, and so if they eat something that doesn't agree with them...I don't want to be indelicate, but sometimes there are accidents, and their apartment is not that big: there's an odour.

"So we don't like to be rude, but when they invite us over, we try to change the venue, which is why we ended up going for a walk that day. Silly us, we thought they might leave the ducks at home! But they didn't, so there we were, walking along Lake Michigan, getting strange looks from everyone we passed. Nettie's a real original, that's for sure!

"It doesn't seem like Nettie is in any big hurry to give us actual human grandchildren, so we probably should stop being so dismissive of Ming Mei and Victor. They're not the grandkids we thought we'd end up with, but they're all we've got.

"And maybe whenever Nettie does have a baby, Alex will help her realize that the baby is at risk of getting nipped in the ear by what should, by all rights, be a wild waterfowl, and then it'll be Victor and Ming Mei à l'orange!

"Well...we can dream, anyway."