Dear Kid,

Have you ever thought about flamingos? Specifically, have you thought about pink plastic flamingos? My guess is you haven’t sufficiently contemplated, cogitated, and otherwise considered these most stationary of birds.

Pink Plastic Flamingos -- what they do, what they eat, where they live. DearKidLoveMom.comDon Featherstone (I did not make that up) invented the pink plastic flamingo in 1957. Featherstone created plastic flamingos after a night of creative burrito making (I may have made that part up a little).

Being the kind of mom I am, I have carefully and thoroughly researched the habits of plastic flamingos, so that you don’t have to fret about this when you take biology. Or whatever class it is that requires mastery of the lifestyles of the pink and plastic.

Plastic flamingos get their color from their diet. Conscientious owners provide pink plastic shrimp for a well-balanced, color-correct sheen to their faux feathers. I have it on good authority that plastic flamingos do not drink diet coke which is why there isn’t a diet coke shortage in the world.

Amazingly, plastic flamingos make the same sounds real flamingos make. Especially if you sit on them.

Featherstone won the Ig Nobel Prize in 1996. Yeah, I’ll be talking about that soon, because I won’t be able to help myself.

The natural habitat for pink plastic flamingos is the front lawn. You can frequently find them near garden gnomes. Their only natural predator is the runaway lawnmower.

Love, Mom