July 29, 2010
“See how the sacred old flamingoes come, painting with shadows all the marble steps. Aged and wise they seek their wanted perches." -William Butler Yeats
Their wanted perch apparently was our front yard, as last week a flock of flamingoes landed there.
We were "flocked".
Simply put, that means that early one morning, we discovered a flock of hot pink and chartreuse flamingoes perching on our lawn, some on one leg, some bent and pecking through blades of grass.
If plastic flamingoes can peck, that is.
It was indeed a sight to behold.
Along with the brightly colored birds was a banner indicating a phone number to call if you happened to be the recipient of the flock. A message inside a plastic bag hung on our front door mentioned that the flock would migrate if you were kind enough to donate to the flock's cause, in this case a church youth group. Additionally, you could text a number when you put your donation in the bag, and the flock would then miraculously leave and fly to a friend's house of your choosing.
We were happy to oblige, especially the part about sending the flock to a friend's house.
I knew instantly who that would be, too, because it was flamingo practical joke payback time. I had waited a long time for this moment (Machiavellian laugh here).
This friend had a flamingo joke coming.
It seems that for a reason known only to her, she decided it would be fun to place pink flamingoes in our yard on my birthday, on my husband's birthday, in the winter, on Easter Sunday, on the 4 th of July or on Christmas Eve. Any holiday, she thought, would be a good time for a flamingo to land in our front yard, back yard, in the trees, on the porch, in the driveway.
Let me tell you, those flamingoes popped up everywhere around us.
The problem--we did not know at the time who was behind the clever caper. Once I ran an ad in the paper offering a reward for information leading to the discovery of the flamingo perpetrator. I questioned neighbors, relatives and friends. No one had a clue, or they played dumb.
Over a period of several months, we found the following in or around our yard: three hot pink Beanie Babies, three light pink Flamingo stir sticks made of pipe cleaners and dyed cotton balls and stuck in a bucket of sand, one tacky, exceptionally tacky, pink Flamingo paper weight, one Keepsake flamingo ornament titled "lawn patrol" (not so bad), Easter baskets filled with toy flamingoes and hot pink plastic eggs, and a book "What Makes Flamingoes Pink".
The mystery was killing me until one day, out of the blue, my neighbor couldn't take the guilt any longer and made a tactical error, as criminals are wont to do. We received an anonymous post card in the mail showing real flamingoes standing on one foot, of course, in a resort pool at some unknown tropical location.
It was then I remembered that our neighbors were on vacation in Mexico.
Criminals always leave a clue.
Therefore and as we speak, she has a flock of plastic flamingoes, a big flock, in her yard!
One worrisome thought occurs to me, however. I hope she doesn't change her modus operandi and start sending us plastic pigs or goats.
