Stingl: Support duck on airplane goes viral
When you hear the details of this story, you can imagine how it might go viral. A Cudahy woman's emotional support duck named Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt takes its first airplane trip, dressed for the occasion in red booties and a Captain America diaper.
A man sitting across the aisle posts photos on Twitter, his best shot as the flightless drake looks out the aircraft window high over North Carolina.
"Call me a little flummoxed by all the attention," Mark Essig told me. "I thought I'd just be amusing my friends with these tweets. But all of a sudden BuzzFeed picked it up and then it just kind of blew up."
Carla Fitzgerald, 37, bought Daniel as a 2-day-old duckling at 7 Mile Fair four years ago. And now people all across America, Europe, Australia and beyond are hearing about him with varying degrees of accuracy on Twitter, the Washington Post, the BBC, ABC, Mashable, "Inside Edition" and other shows and websites.
"The UK thinks I'm 20. I'm OK with that," Carla said.
On Oct. 16, Carla flew from Milwaukee to Asheville, N.C., to visit a friend's farm. She showed American Airlines a letter from her doctor, a prescription of sorts, saying the duck is an emotional support animal that she needs to have along as therapy for her post-traumatic stress disorder.
Even the cause of that PTSD is unusual. Carla had a job driving a horse-drawn carriage in Milwaukee. In February of 2013, near downtown, a car slammed into the back of the carriage, sending her flying onto a metal drawbridge. The horse survived but suffered whiplash.
"It was four months before I could walk again. It was more than a year before I could use my left arm. Now I have chronic pain and I also have post-traumatic stress disorder," said Carla, who has not been able to work.
Daniel, an Indian Runner duck, has imprinted on Carla and thinks he's a person, she said. He detects her stress and cuddles with her. She takes him along on car rides, to the movies, to church and out to eat. He walks on a leash, wearing tiny neoprene shoes to protect his feet.
Besides his waterfowl diet of kibble, Daniel climbs up to the kitchen table and enjoys macaroni and cheese, chicken, meatloaf and chili. His favorite toys are electronic keyboards that he knows how to activate. Daniel gets a bath or shower every day and always wears a diaper except when he retires for the night to his playpen.
Mark Essig first met Carla in the gate area of the Charlotte airport where she had changed planes. He noticed she had an animal in a zip-up stroller and assumed it was a small dog. He was surprised to see it was a duck and that it was coming on board.
There has been controversy of late as people have brought a pig, a turkey and other beasts on airplanes, claiming they are support animals. But the other passengers seemed enchanted by this unusual flying companion.
"I was kind of expecting someone to be more critical, but the worst I heard was, 'Now I've seen everything,' " said Mark, who lives in Asheville and works as an editor and ghostwriter. He is using these few minutes of fame to promote his book, "Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig."
Daniel was well behaved on the short trip, sitting on Carla's lap or the empty seat next to her. The crew presented him with a Certificate of First Flight.
Mark started posting tweets about Daniel and photos when he got off the plane. Most of what he typically shares gets maybe one or two retweets or likes. The photo of the duck silhouetted in the airplane window, an unlikely mashup of two familiar shapes, is up to 5,600 retweets and 12,000 likes.
Most of the reaction has been positive, but you know how mean the internet can be. "A smug liberal taking credit for someone else's duck," was one troll's take.
Mark and Carla have fielded a lot of media calls. And the BBC is paying Mark $150 for use of his duck photo.
"About all I did all last week was be a press agent for Daniel. So this has been a net loss monetarily," he said with a laugh. "But I've learned some things and it's been fun."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or jstingl@jrn.com. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl