Salutations, dear loyal hecrenews readers. Today, we’ll discuss a topic that seems to be plaguing the community as of late: How to tell if your pillow is actually a duck. Now, you might be thinking something along the lines of: “Foolboy, of course I know my pillow isn’t a duck! What do you take me for, a MEL?” but I assure you, this very real problem is really very problematic. Take a good, long look at your pillow right now. Is it a pillow, or just a “pillow” masquerading as a duck? Can you even tell the difference?? This is why, for the good of humankind as a whole, I’ve decided to write up a handy-dandy guide for all your pillow and duck differentiating needs.

Take your average pillow(pictured below). Pretty white, right? That’s assuming you haven’t gone and salsa’d it up, of course. Barring that unfortunate case, most pillows are white indeed. Now, if you have a pillow nearby, pick it up. Isn’t it fluffy? Now throw it away from you like it’s infested with bedbugs. Listen to the sound it makes when it hits the ground. Just a dull thump, no echo at all. And we’ve touched on the three main qualities of a pillow: It’s white, it’s fluffy, and it doesn’t echo when it hits the ground.

Let’s compare these qualities to those of a duck. Pillows are white, so are many ducks. In fact, the big man at our SAR (Science and Research) Division, Sheeple Dunnell, said that “ducks are fluffy” as well. Starting to see a problem here? Well, it only gets worse. We already know that a pillow doesn’t echo when you try to amke a sound with it, but surely this doesn’t extend for a duck. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. When a mysterious figure only known as “The Don” was asked about this in one of the routine street interrogationsinterviews regularly conducted by hecrenews staff, he replied very enigmatically, “Why a dck’s quack doesn’t echo? No one knows…” Somehow he managed to say the ellipsis, which is a god-tier superpower in and of itself. But more pressing is that ducks have managed to demonstrate the same qualities as pillows. They’re 3 for 3 now. What a calamity!

We’ve got to get to the real essence of pilows and ducks here, then, if we want to differentiate the two. The only surefire way to tell them apart, based on our data, is the taste test. Yes, you heard us right. Through a whole bunch of wholly scientific experimentation, the boys at SAR have discovered that pillows taste like “yuck”, while ducks taste like “duck”. Additionally, if you try taking a bite out of a pillow it just sits there, while if you try taking a bite out of a duck it goes ballistic, putting 3-5 good nerds in the hospital with in some cases incurable physical and mental damage.

At least the pillow vs. duck debate is finally settled. Millions of people can now safely go to sleep, knowing their head rests upon a white, fluffy, non-echoing pillow instead of a white, fluffy, non-echoing duck. Make sure to take a bite first, just to be sure!

In unrelated news, SAR has a vacancy of about 3-5 people currently, all takers are welcome. Employees can be expected to talk sciencey, engage in whatever random scientific pursuits we tell them to, and generally support the HBA in its endeavors as well. (When you show up to the interview, the secret code is “rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-ta

Edit by HAC (Hecrenews Article Quality Control): Hector is trying to secretly foist his nonvegetarian ideals onto you in this article, be warned. The hecrenews does not publicly endorse either dietary preference. You do not have to take a bite out of your pillow/duck if you do not wish. Ignorance is bliss.