You're driving down the road.
You pull up alongside a flatbed truck and you glance to your left, and, what the...duck?
The view through Joe Mansheim's side window raises all sorts of questions.
What for instance is a duck-hunting truck driver doing with a waterfowl riding shotgun?
"Truckers are like, 'What the heck is that?'" Joe says about the nine-month-old mallard named Frank, propped up on a pillow, head darting from side to side, riding in the passenger seat of his International Truck.
"Goofy duck," says Joe, with the affection a father might show his young son.
Joe and Frank chat often on the road.
Joe complains about the traffic; Frank quacks.
And driver and duck go about their business delivering construction materials throughout the Minnesota's Twin Cities for Elite Transportation Systems.
To many of the construction workers he encounters in his deliveries, Joe is now known as the "duck man."
The title suits him just fine.
It all started about a year ago when Joe spent $700 dollars on a duck hunting dog that wouldn't hunt.
His boss quipped that he should have skipped the dog and just bought the duck.
"So I called up a feed and tack store in Stillwater and said, 'I'd like to order a duck,'" Joe explained.
It was all meant to be a joke, until the little ball of fuzz that arrived a few days later connected with the duck hunter in ways that aren't quite natural.
One morning last spring Frank followed Joe out the kitchen and across the yard to his truck.
Frank hasn't missed a day of work since.
"I'm a duck hunter but I don't consider Frank a duck. I just consider him a friend," says Joe.
First few weeks Frank was known as Frances, until Joe realized his duck was a drake.
"Stupid as it sounds maybe if more people had a duck in their lives we wouldn't be all so mad at each other," he says.
One disclaimer, should anyone be thinking about a duck for their next pet.
Ducks cannot be house (or truck) broken.
What they leave behind is not pleasant, but to Joe it's a small price to pay for Frank's companionship.
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