Daniel Hudson: A Ducking Good Time

Daniel, standing in front of the Bath bath. Clothed version.

I never thought my biggest regret from studying abroad would be not buying a rubber duck. And it happened on a day when this generally stingy son of a bitch was ready and willing to drop his pounds on pounds of knick-knacks too, ironically enough.

It was the last week of my studying abroad experience.  My time wandering the Dorset coast was long gone, my weekend in Paris was no longer fresh in my mind, and the oncoming finals for each one of my classes were starting to weigh on me.

Despite all of this, I still joined my friends and a ton of random students from Winchester on a trip to the town of Bath. Their annual Christmas market would be the perfect place to pick up souvenirs, and there were even a few sites to see that would make it a pretty satisfying last trip. The premiere tourist attraction was definitely the ancient bath houses that I’d been hearing about from friend for a few weeks up until the trip and were definitely at the top of my to do list once there.

Things got interesting pretty much right off the bat. The massive crowds at the Christmas market separated me from pretty much everyone, save one person whom I met on the bus ride: Irma.

Neither of us had been to Bath before, so getting lost immediately was almost expected. So instead of panicking, we took advantage of the situation and decided to explore as much as we could.

Amidst hours of ogling useless-but-cool-looking junk, eating a bunch of crazy foods I couldn’t pronounce even on my tenth try, and walking until our legs were pudding, we finally got around to the bathhouses that Bath was so well known for. Up until this point, I felt like the trip had been going pretty well, but could it really compare to some of my other trips of the past few months?

In fact, it really started to weigh on my mind. After Stonehenge, after Paris, after London… my time in England was coming to a close in a glorified outdoor mall? Was that really the note my study abroad would end on?

           

I wanted to make this special somehow. Sure, I’d met Irma, who by default is the coolest German person I’ve ever known. But I’d met tons of people in England; that wasn’t going to make Bath stand out to me. Neither were all the cool souvenirs, or tasty food, or excruciatingly long walks. Those were a dime a dozen during an experience like this.

No, I needed something more; I needed a final send off to make this last trip within my trip worthwhile. I needed to do something stupid.

And so we made our way to the bathhouses.       

All the stuff I’d heard from the past week or so from my friends came bubbling to the surface of my mind. Namely, the one recurrent theme of “Don’t drink the bath water in Bath”. An idea formed fairly quickly.

When we finally arrived, the actual bath lived up to the hype. It was veritable pool with water constantly streaming in from nearby rock formations. The water itself was a soothing shade of green that you wouldn’t get from an ocean, a lake, and certainly not any modern pool, and it was still enough to hold a perfect reflection of the ancient architecture surrounding it.

After getting a few pictures, I dipped a finger into the water. Its warmth compared to the chilly air that had been nipping at me all afternoon was like a night and day difference. But, as I withdrew my finger, I overheard an employee talking to someone nearby. They explained all the unappetizing contents of the water, such as lead, sulfer and pigeon poop that was mixed in.

I was… hesitant to drink the bath water after that, to say the least. In fact, I held my finger out at arm’s length while Irma suggested we find a bathroom to wash my hands. I agreed.

But I was also disappointed. My last chance to make this trip really memorable had all but evaporated. I made my way to the bathroom, already accepting my fate.

And I saw them.

Lining the shelves of the bathhouse souvenir shop were rows and rows of rubber ducks! Some dressed as Roman gladiators, others adorned with togas and olive branches, but all of them, unquestionably, ducks.

My mind raced. What did you normally do with rubber ducks? You put them in the bath, of course. And there was a pretty big bath just around the corner, wasn’t there…?

Puzzle pieces clicked. I could buy a rubber duck right now, I thought as I washed my hands.  And set him loose in the giant bath!

It was so stupid it just might work! If I gave him a little push, then the duck would be stuck in the middle of the bath for hours potentially. No employee would risk going into the filthy water to fish him out, and by the time he’d get close enough to the edge to be plucked free I’d be long gone.

There was little chance I’d be tracked down, too. I’d be back in Winchester by the end of the day, and back in America by next week. There’s no way I’d be extradited for misuse of a rubber duck, so I had nothing to lose.

             

But despite that, doubt crept in fast. Should I really do this? It was a pretty petty thing to do. And I could’ve been thrown out had I not been discreet enough. I guess I didn’t really want that…

In the end I waited too long to make my decision. We had to leave eventually to catch the bus home, and I let my opportunity pass by just because of that lingering doubt.

Now that the moment has long since passed, I definitely regret not acting on that one impulse. But at the same time, if I had to talk myself out of anything during my time abroad, I’m glad it wasn’t my chance to go to France, or all those little English towns I got to explore. Maybe my Bath visit wasn’t fully realized, but my time in England as a whole definitely was.

At the end of the day, my only real regret from my semester abroad is that I didn’t buy and let loose that one rubber duck. As far as regrets go, that’s one I can live with.

Bio: Daniel Hudson survived studying at Winchester University with only very mild brain trauma. Now back at Lander, he plans to continue surviving while he gets his Mass Communications degree and moves on into the real world eventually. Hopefully. Maybe.