Oh Noes!

    Have you ever been "flamingoed?" 

    Now, I don't know if it's the fact that I live in a city filled with unemployed, drunken factory workers with too much time on their hands, or what.  But, there's a very odd little phenomenon that occurs in this town, and it's called "getting flamingoed." 

    I'm not entirely sure when it started.  Local lore places the creation of this bizarre event somewhere in that wacky, wild era of the late Seventies and early Eighties.  And, from what I've been able to gather, it started small. 

    At first, there were perhaps a small flock of five pink, plastic flamingoes dotting a random yard here in town.  The homeowner knew nothing of where these creatures came from, nor did they know why they were congregating upon his or her lawn.  However, rather than simply find themselves in the garbage, something magical happened.  The homeowner saved the flamingoes, added to their numbers by buying more, and, after an unspecified amount of time, under cover of darkness, he or she found a new lawn upon which to place this mass of pink, plastic yard art.

    For some unknown reason, this sort of weird, social event continued, and just last week, as I was running errands around town, I saw the most recent unfortunate citizen who'd been flamingoed, and though I couldn't stop to count their numbers, I would estimate that this flock had grown to perhaps close to a hundred of these gaudy, pink monsters. 

    I've never been flamingoed.  In a way, I'm kind of happy for that.  I have no idea what I'd do with 100 pink, plastic flamingoes.  From what I gather, the point of this menace is to pick a victim pretty much at random.  However, you can't simply take the flamingoes from your yard and stick them in your neighbor's yard.  That just makes you look weak.  But, they have to stay within city limits, and, fortunately, I don't really recall the police station ever being flamingoed; however, the mayor's lawn has been hit more times than I count.  I don't know if people are sending him a message, or if they just simply get a huge kick out of forcing the mayor to plant these things on someone's lawn in the middle of the night.  If nothing else, at least we know for a fact that the mayor is actually working on something.   

    Anyway, the sad news behind all of this is that the much-cherished pink flamingo may very well become extinct as a result of the business behind them shutting down.  And, this could have a devastating impact upon the roving band of gaudy, pink plastic here in my town as they go from kitschy yard art to collectors' items.  I'm hoping someone steps in to save this odd little creation.  This wandering collection of kitsch is one of the things that makes living here kind of fun --if not a little odd-- and though I don't know where the pink platoon is today, I know it's only a matter of time before they wind up on my lawn.  And I've got a hit list of people whose lawns could use a lot of pink. 

-DP

Tags: Save the Flamingo, DPoem, Flamingoed