225BatonRouge.com

Question: How do you race rubber ducks down Third Street when there’s no water?

Answer: Flood the street.

Oh yes. That’s right. It’s time to race rubber ducks again, May 5, to benefit the Boys & Girls Club.

Though it would be amusing to strap rubber ducks to people and make them run down Third Street, that’s not how this is going to work.

Instead, race organizers will fashion 250 sandbags into a river covering roughly half of Third Street between Florida and Laurel. The streets’ curbs are about nine inches, which will serve as the riverbanks of the 6-inch-deep duck river.

A dump truck stationed near the Romain Clock on Third Street will release the ducks, and the fire department will keep the water flowing.

How many rubber ducks are there, you ask? A cool 15,000, leased from Great American Merchandise and Events. They’re shipped in a week before the race, then shipped back a week later. And who knows from whence the ducks will come as Great American Merchandise and Events supplies duck (or turtle) races in Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, England, El Salvador, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Scotland and Switzerland.

Wherever they come from, the Wednesday before the race every duck gets a unique number that matches its adoptive parents.

And what does the fastest duck receive?

Well, the duck doesn’t get anything, but the grand prize for the lucky person who adopts it is a 2007 Kia Optima, with other prizes for second and third place. Until May 4, ducks can be adopted for $5 a piece by visiting brducks.org. Notice the use of the word “adopted,” since you can’t actually take the duck home for use in your bathtub race.

“If there is a riot of duck thieves on the loose, we will have two policemen to try to keep our ducks in a row,” says Boys & Girls Club Executive Director Pat Van Burkleo.

Thanks to Pat for the quack-tastic information about the duck race/pseudo duck soup!