The Origin of Jeep Ducking

I guess there is some big Jeep event going on in the Phoenix area right now. I saw a picture posted on social media with a caption that read, “At work during the week of the Jeep Invasion and I’m trying to avoid ducks.”

The photo showed a jeep with a cardboard sign on the windshield which said, “I Don’t Want Your Ducks. Save them for the women and children.” Somebody had come along and left a rubber ducky tucked under the sign with a note.

I thought it was a little grinchy and a little funny, so I shared the post to an Arizona Jeep group I read once in a while.

It seems that it was all started by a Jeep owner named Allison Parliament after an ugly gas station spat in Ontario Canada. Afterwards a friend participate in a much needed pit stop to help Allison calm down. As a joke and to say thank you Allison hid a bag of rubber duckies scattered through out his apartment. Later Allison put one last duck on a fellow Jeep owner’s vehicle with a note saying “nice Jeep.”

The Jeep owner saw her and suggested she post about it on social media.

Its become a thing with people leaving rubbery duckies on strangers Jeeps they see in a parking lot. They call it ducking, and if you find one on your Jeep you have been ducked. Some people feel quite strongly about it. A few get quite upset about people messing about their vehicle and others take it as a sort of right of passage that somebody “ducked” their Jeep. Many of course are indifferent or get a small smile out of it.

To get back to my story of simply sharing a post. On that Jeep group right now there are 40 comments with most reacting negatively to the sign on the Jeep in the picture. The post right below it posted about the same time talking about the Jeep event say, “Six parking lots full of Jeeps. This is a fun show.” to which at the moment there are only 11 comments. Mostly from people who wish they were at the show.

My Jeep as of yet has not been ducked, or if it has I never noticed and the poor little rubber ducky was lost along the trail somewhere.

Origin story sources include a Jeff Bogle story in Reader’s Digest and an NPR story by A. Martinez and Steve Inskeep.