denise

I made a mistake, it happens so rarely I should have known it would come back to haunt me somehow. The mistake wasn’t a big one, just a little tiny thing but it’s caused some issues and now we have a mystery on our hands.

Quite some time ago, almost 5 years ago actually, I mentioned in passing to TW that I liked flamingos. Lawn flamingos in particular but all flamingos in general.

Well folks, don’t make the same mistake I did. Telling TW you like something leads to being inundated with that thing. In every type, shape and form. From halloween pumpkins carved with a flamingo to flamingo lights of all sizes and types to flamingo statues and yes, yard flamingos. 40 of them for my 40th birthday and a variety of others just for everyday.

After almost 5 years of this, I’ve finally gotten her to stop buying every new flamingo she sees, though others still tend to gift me with flamingos. My sister, (yes THAT sister), sent me clothes for a yard flamingo a couple of years ago. I do not EVER “do” clothes on animals, statues or otherwise. For my birthday last year she sent me the most unusual flamingo trimmed jeans I’ve ever seen. Anyway, you get the point right? They don’t call our house The Flamingo House for nothing.

This brings us to the mystery, well almost to the mystery.

We live in Florida where the lottery symbol is the flamingo. We live in a state where there are simply a lot of flamingos. Wild, in zoos, in stores, store logos – you name it, Flamingos.

Oddly enough, in our college town, you don’t see many lawn flamingos. At least not in the neighborhoods we travel through. But all of a sudden, the folks down the street have acquired a couple of flamingos. Only in the winter. And they wear wool scarves and they move, from yard to yard. Though never to our house. They seem to prefer the houses at the bottom of the hill which is fine by me because I ummm have enough.

And a house around the corner, they too have acquired flamingos but they don’t seem to travel from house to house. Maybe because they have lightbulbs and know they need to stick close to home or risk losing their light? I dunno, I haven’t asked them why they don’t travel.

So as we are pondering the recent acquisition of flamingos, by apparently straight folks (because I know you were guessing gay people had moved in, weren’t you?), a new bird appeared in our yard. Overnight.

It’s not a flamingo but it goes well with our flamingos. Except that it is orange and blue, gator color, which I’m not really a fan of. At first we thought he was rainbow colored but he’s not. Various shades of orange and blue. Hmm. Where did he come from and when is he leaving?

We thought maybe the 1/2 child left him as a surprise. But no, he swears he has no clue and he’s not a good liar. We asked the friends of the 1/2 child and the other two teens in the house. Huh? was the response. I finally remembered to ask Chris last night and he was completely confused. He thought I was going to ask him to fix one of the birds or move it or do some other chore. When he realized there was a new one in the yard, he first said “ha I hadn’t noticed” and then said “ummm who would bring you another yard bird?” I didn’t bother to clarify that chickens are yardbirds and this is not a chicken.

While asking him, the small children overheard my confusion so I asked them if they knew anything about it. Ha, they hadn’t noticed either. (We’re one heck of an observant family or we’re just use to weird birds living in our front yard – you guess which it is)

So where did this thing come from? Why is it here? Will it someday disappear again? Soon maybe? Would any of you like to come pick it up? Maybe I could freecycle it? But then if someone left it for us as a gift, (Maybe one of the many neighborhood fans of mamma cat?) might they have their feelings hurt if it went away?

It’s a mystery and it’s keeping me up nights.

Technorati Tags: mystery, flamingos,