I was working in my home office a few days ago. I was finishing up a new product, concentrating intensely. Despite being deeply engrossed I heard something unusual. It faded in and out of consciousness, but it finally hit me: the sound was ducks quacking. This made me happy. Although I was hard at work, I took a moment to savor the family of ducks outside my office window.

There were enough of them that the quacking got to be monotonous. Still, I didn’t mind at all. How cool is it to have ducks quacking contentedly while you work? Contentedly, and… persistently. Very persistent. And again–monotonous.

The quacking didn’t stop. It seemed to become more persistent. I finally looked up. Nothing. My iPhone alarm was going off, however. The alarm sound is, well, duck quacks, a ring tone baked right into the iPhone operating system since Day 1.

Then I realized that I don’t have a family of ducks outside the window. Never did. Oh, we have animals at our house. The sound of frogs outside my bedroom window at night is one of the great pleasures of my life. There’s a racoon family under our deck, which to me is pure coolness. Deer pass through our backyward frequently, and rabbits in the front. There are even coyotes and a tiny black bear in our neighborhood.

But not ducks.

I was concentrating so hard that I somehow conflated the persistent duck ringtone echoing in the distant recesses of my underpowered brain with our frogs.  I had managed to create a phantom and become thankful for it, all in the space of a few minutes, after synthesizing it out of other fond memories and a fairly crappy duck ringtone.

Go figure. Now be thankful I’m just a manager, and not doing actual work at eSnipe! (“Sure your bid went through… hey, wait a minute, that’s someone else’s bid… sorry….”)

Cheers,

Tom Campbell