A FLAMINGO?!?

Last night, while visiting his neighbor, I noticed Matt has a flamingo in his yard. I thought to myself, "The guy has a flamingo!?!" I thought you had to be retired to earn one of those. 'Happy retirement- here’s you’re flamingo!' Or buy a house in Florida. You get the keys to your new home and a plastic pink flamingo as a bonus to show you are a valued customer and to say congratulations on your new home.

It took less than a minute to decide I had to somehow punk the flamingo. It just had to be done.

So I changed said flamingo’s placing among other lawn ornaments, but it just wasn’t enough. That’s when Erin suggested that the flamingo should have a tie and name tag like missionaries* do, since Matt is our ward missionary leader and we are his minions ward missionaries.

I was giddy with the thought.

Fabric with an undersea theme was procured and made into a tie (thanks for your help Eric K!) along with a mini name tag made reading “Elder Mingo.” Aiden donated his Harry Potter glasses and we soon we had a pretty decent looking flamingo, if I do say so myself. Definitely an improvement, anyway.

Aiden suggested Mr. Mingo should have a top hat. Gears started turning and I found myself making a list of other necessities for Mr. Mingo, and in doing so I feel I have inadvertantly found my true vocation- flamingo fashion!

This morning I was walking Archie home after dropping Aiden off from school and little dog was wearing his raincoat. My mind flashed to the poor pink flamingo standing in the rain. A quick detour showed that yes, Mr. Mingo was sadly neglected out in the rain, so Archie very gladly lent his raincoat to Mr. Mingo for a while.

Amazing how quickly I have become so fond of an object that has previously been so scorned and mocked. Mocking the flamingo with fashion is actually quite enjoyable- so much more so than scorning it, I have found. Who knew? Since I do not live in Florida and therefore am not surrounded by plastic pink garden flamingos I have yet to decide if naked flamingos still arouse my scorn. I may have to walk through the neighboring trailer park to see. I fear however, that a naked lawn flamingo with still be met with scorn- or, possibly now, pity?- because it is the dressing of the flamingo and then laughing at the ridiculousness of it that is enjoyable. Kind of like putting my dog in a raincoat.


*Don't know what I mean with all my talk of missionaries? Check it out: http://www.mormon.org/missionaries

**This actually happened at least 18 months ago, or more. I just found it cleaning up some files on my laptop. Trust me, this is just the beginning!