Ducks

August 2, 2023

My unsuccessful quest for canning supplies on Sunday left me feeling frustrated and unsure if my efforts were going to turn into canned pasta sauce.  I came out to my car wondering what I should do next or where I now needed to check.  As I approached my vehicle, I noticed a small rubber duck sitting on the driver’s side door handle.  At first, I was taken back.  Who would have placed a rubber duck on my car and what was the intended meaning?  I remembered the story of how the Jeep wave had begun after World War II as ex-GI’s purchased surplus army Jeeps.  The Jeep wave became a recognition of camaraderie that brought this group together.  During the pandemic I also heard something about the Jeep ducks that were placed for this same reason and wondered if I had experienced being part of the Jeep ducks movement.

When I looked online, I found the heart of the Jeep ducks phenomenon is a desire to put a smile on someone’s face.  Jeep owners leave rubber ducks on other Jeeps to surprise the owner.  It is an inside joke and a random act of kindness among fans of the Jeep brand.  Jeep ducks are all about making strangers and travelers feel like they are part of something bigger and kinder.  The movement now known as Jeep Ducking began in 2020 in Ontario, Canada, during the early days of the pandemic.  After an ugly spat in a gas station parking lot, a Jeep owner named Allison Parliament needed to rely on a friend for a much-needed pit stop to calm down before continuing her travel.  To thank her friend, Parliament bought a bag of rubber ducks and hid them around his house as a joke before heading farther north to reach her family’s home.  Before those ducks were scattered around her friend’s home, Parliament put a single yellow duck on a stranger’s Jeep in the store’s parking lot, with a simple, sweet note saying, “nice Jeep.”  The owner of that Jeep saw her and laughed then suggested that she post about it on social media which she did.  That was the birth of a movement that now has more than 73,000 fans (and growing) on Facebook.  Parliament’s social media group is now the official Jeep duck account recognized by Jeep itself.

The question I had was what to do once one of the Jeep ducks shows up on my vehicle?  I could take a picture and post it on social media with the #duckduckjeep hashtag to share it with other members of the community.  I placed my duck on my dashboard as a badge of honor and I continue to keep waving to other Jeep owners as we pass on the road.  The ducks site suggested I could keep the duck you were given or pass that duck along to another Jeep driver.  The only real rule for the Jeep ducks is kindness.  You can buy rubber ducks to keep in your Jeep, then randomly put them on other peoples’ Jeeps as you see fit.  Jeep ducks are often placed just outside the driver’s side window, near the windshield wiper or in front of the inspection stickers, so the driver will easily see it before driving away.  You may want to leave one of the ducks on a Wrangler because you like the color, or on a Grand Cherokee because it’s the same model you drive.  There are no concrete rules for when or why to place the ducks.

Thoughts:  The Jeep ducks started out as a Wrangler thing, but the ducks are no longer exclusive to the Wrangler and can be found on Cherokees, Liberties, Compasses, and every other model bearing the Jeep logo.  Drivers of other car brands are co-opting the ducks trend and placing them on vehicles all over the globe.  When I was blessed with one of the Jeep ducks it brought a little joy to a day gone awry.  Bringing extra smiles to the world is welcome, regardless of whether it comes from a Jeep or any other vehicle owner.  Kindness is more contagious than hate.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.