Item of the day: Rubber Duck

What is the function of a rubber duck?

Bubbles. Bathtubs. Babies. And then… the rubber duck? It baffles me to even begin to fathom the famous yellow toy’s functionality.

And who’d have guessed, the Guinness World Record for the largest rubber duck collection is 2,587. That’s an enormous duck-infested pool. I can’t fail to mention what I’ve been randomly noticing more and more in gift and useless gadget stores lately, too – DESIGNER RUBBER DUCKS. I’ve seen black ducks that look dead, princess ducks, Elvis Presley wannabe ducks, I’ve even seen a duck posing as an astronaut. What the…?!

And… who’d have known, that while the iconic, popular and absolutely necessary rubber ducky has been around since the late 1800′s – around the time of the invention of rubber – and it was actually our good friend from Sesame Street, Ernie, who opened the worlds eyes to such a phenomenon?

These days, “Rubber Duckies” aren’t actually rubber. They are more commonly constructed from this plasticized vinyl material that looks and feels like rubber. Which brings me to the fact that tradition is valued so highly in life and all that happens in between. But is it valued too highly?

I could easily own either side of this debate. So let’s just say, because I follow no religion, that YES, I THINK THAT TRADITIONAL VALUES DO NOT HOLD AS MUCH IMPORTANCE AS ONE WOULD LIKE TO BELIEVE.

Randomly: Marriage, for example. I am 22 years old, have been with the love of my life Dave for over six years, and while it was indeed ‘young love’, I have absolute faith that he is my Mister Right. Six years, you say? “Wow. That can only be a good thing, and look at how happy you both are, and how perfect you are for each other. So, when are you two getting married?” I cannot allow myself to be frustrated when people ask when the big day is, as I have been wearing a spectacular diamond on my finger for three of those six years.

We have talked about our ‘big day’, and speculated the turning of the page of our lives into married life time after time. It’s exciting to gather our thoughts, and agree and disagree on potential locations, seasons, themes etc, but 98% of the time I find the imaginary side of it to be really quite satisfactory. Ultimately, the only thing our wedding will change is my name. Really, a piece of paper is just a piece of paper, and venue hire and catering costs and tuxedo hire and the perfect dress ($1295, last time I decided ‘that dress’ was ‘the one’) is just more expenses to add to the bills, rent, loan repayments, grocery orders…

Traditionally, you meet the love of your life, you celebrate with marriage, you settle down to raise a family and construct a stable life for the children that you will have when the time comes. Traditionally, marriage is somewhat a ‘finalisation’ of yourself as you are, or were.

In the beginning, or uber-traditionally – marriage was more or less just a business agreement between two families. In some arranged marriages, cash or land was exchanged for the knowledge that once the transaction was completed, your precious daughter would have a being of her very own to win the bread, and to provide her with the necessary tools to make children; to make a family. In our times, people are waiting later to marry, later to have children, later to settle into their half-a-million dollar mortgage… people are even waiting longer to move away from their nest, and longer than ever before to determine their life-path. Hell, in some states and countries, it is even okay to ‘marry’ a same-sex partner if you like… to take “the road less travelled”.

Traditionally, even as late as the 60′s and 70′s, an individuals life generally conformed to a very dedicated structure: School – College – Marriage – Children – Husband earning the family’s living – Wife raising her offspring.

Think about it however you will; is marriage a religious ceremony allowing a courtship between two people who wish to follow traditional values? Or has the meaning of the word evolved so much as to say that marriage is just a celebration of two peoples unconditional love? When you start splitting hairs, this makes us older than generations before us. But, think about it, split the already split hairs some more, go on. You could say that this may have been happening forever. Today, we live in a western first class world where family values are the most important and the least important personal prospects simultaneously. We are more independent, we are certainly more career driven, and according to statistics, a third of all marriages will end in divorce. More commonly now, ones family are their friends, the people they love are who they consider to be their family. And fair enough. The freedom our world has opened its eyes to in the last major shift of laws, personal rights and communal regulations has indeed given humans as individuals and as families to make more choices than ever before, and to follow their hearts desires, whether it be to lead an ‘expected’ life and raise a ‘traditional’ family, or to drive yourself all the way to the top of the career ladder by the time you are forty.

Dave; You know how much I really want to marry you. I trust that you never doubt my motives. But personally, as I have conversed with you previously, I want to marry you because I love you. The tradition is beautiful, and… wait. The more I think about this, the more I suspect I’d have had a lot more success in conveying my point if I’d taken the other side of this dilemma.

I wanted to talk about the significance and functionality of a Rubber Ducky. Whatever happened? Hmm… those damned tangents.

In conclusion: when you are eighteen months old, with the attention span of an eighteen month old… Seriously, how boring would bath time be without some foam letters, bubbles, and an adorable rubber bird friend to keep you company, an adorable friend who can keep up with your incredibly deep and meaningful conversations? SuDoKu and audio books just won’t cut it… your eighteen months of mental and physical developments will surpass none other than a rubber ducky.