I have scarred him for life!!

Today we were out and about running errands. I hopped on the freeway and headed up the on-ramp. I was the first car in line and as I looked up the on-ramp I saw a bird in my lane. I thought it was a quail and it would fly away as I got closer. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't a quail it was in fact a duck and duckling. There were cars in the lane next to me so I couldn't change lanes. The emergency lane was very small on the on-ramp so I couldn't use it as a lane. I started freaking out. This is the conversation I had with myself - out loud:

"Oh no!!

What's that?

It's a duck and a duckling!

Oh no!!

What am I going to do?

Oh no!!"

I slow down.

"Maybe they will get to the side of the road.

Hurry!! Hurry!!

Oh no!!

What should I do?

They aren't going to make it!!"

I center the vehicle over the top of them hoping I won't hit them.

I hear: Thud, thud, thump!

"Oh shoot!! Oh no!! Shoot, crap, shoot!!" (Maybe one of those double o's in shoot was actually an i. I can't remember.)

I glanced in my rear view mirror and I saw the mother duck walking over to the side of the road with her wing in a funny position. The baby duckling was fine.

I felt so bad and I called my husband and told him I had a problem. I call him frequently with "problems" and he can tell by the sound of my voice the severity of the problem. I asked him what he thought the severity of the problem was. He thought it was serious! I started crying and told him my story in vivid detail. I told him I probably killed the duck and the duckling didn't have a mom now and I felt horrible. He told me it was better to hurt a duck than swerve and get in an accident and hurt myself and the kids. THE KIDS!!! He asked how the kids were. I glanced in the rear view mirror. Scott looked like he was going to cry. He is very sensitive and hearing my commentary leading up to the "incident" was bad enough but then seeing my tears and hearing the replay to my husband made things even worse (I can be a bit dramatic). The tone of the conversation to my husband changed to damage control!

"I'm sure the duck is fine. She probably just hurt her wing and she will be fine. No, I didn't run over her wing. I'm sure the duckling will be fine too."

We drove past the same spot about an hour later and the duck and duckling were gone. Maybe some good citizen took care of them, maybe the mother duck was ok and they found their way off the freeway. I will never know. I don't think I actually ran over the duck. I think as I drove over the duck it got scared and tried to fly and hurt it's wing. At least I hope that's what happened.

Scott and I have had several conversations about the duck today and I think Scott is ok for now but I'm sure I have scarred him for life!!!