Jeep owners can be a little wacky.

They go out of their way to park next to other Jeeps, even if that makes for a longer walk to the door of the store. They have their own wave. They have those bumper stickers that say, “It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

This is part of the accepted language for Jeepers, including the nearly 20,000 members of the Colorado Jeep Club on Facebook.

None of the inside jokes usually surprise Scot Greene, the group’s administrator and a longtime Jeep enthusiast who lives in Pueblo.

In early 2020, though, he noticed something unfamiliar popping up from his Jeep community. It was a little, well, quacky.

Rubber ducks were being left on Jeeps — sitting on the car door handle or on the hood — for unsuspecting owners to find. Attached were notes like, “You got ducked” or “I liked your Jeep, so I decided to duck it.” There were sometimes instructions to post a photo on social media with the hashtag, #DuckDuckJeep.

“My first impression was, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’” Greene said. “It’s really just a unique way of saying, ‘Hey dude, cool Jeep.’”

More posts followed, driving the group members to put the puzzle together. This was becoming another Jeep thing.

Duck Duck Jeep, as the trend has come to be known, was started on a whim by a woman named Allison Parliament. After being attacked by a stranger in Ontario, Canada, Parliament wanted to find a fun way to spread kindness, she has told media outlets. So she went to a nearby store, bought a rubber duck and left it on a random Jeep.

She shared the encounter on social media. And social media did its thing. The trend has spread to wherever Jeeps can go.

Among multiple Facebook groups dedicated to Duck Duck Jeep, one has more than 130,000 members and comes with a list of rules.

“If you get ducked, you’re free to ‘reduck’ to someone else, keep it for your collection or throw it away and run over it,” one rule states.

“This is supposed to be fun and promote our already awesome Jeep community,” another one reads. “And you’re free to interpret and break the rules if it makes you and others happy.”

This is the point of Duck Duck Jeep: to make people happy.

Searching through the Colorado Jeep Club posts, you can see that goal has been reached.

Along with sharing photos of the colorful and eclectic range of miniature rubber ducks, members write about how finding the ducks made them feel:

“It totally made my day.”

“Even bad days can turn into beautiful experiences.”

“If you ducked in Colorado Springs today, thank you.”

The ducks seem to have lucky timing. They’ve been found after surgeries, car wrecks and on birthdays.

Not all Jeepers are on board with Jeep ducking.

“The response from the Jeep community is a little mixed,” Greene said. “Some people think it’s the best thing ever and some people just don’t like it.”

He’s seen a few comments to that effect, ranging from “Don’t touch my Jeep” to “This is the dumbest fad to come around in decades.”

Greene, who owns a 1997 Jeep Wrangler and two other vehicles in the Jeep family, can see why people are keeping the game of Duck Duck Jeep going.

He got “ducked” once, when he found a purple rubber duck wearing a cowboy hat left on his Jeep.

“They wanted to pass on some love,” Greene said. “I think that’s the whole idea.”

But he’s still unsure about one thing.

“Why a duck?” he said. “No clue.”