memorable

I don't remember how or when it started, but it was something of a tradition in my parent's neighbourhood for yeeeeears to celebrate a friend's birthday with what became known as the Flamingo Gag.

It was actually something almost exclusively done to adults--it was occasionally done for young people but it was more fun to do it to people of rather more advanced years. Because the entire prank consists of sneaking into their front yard while they're not home (or in the middle of the night) and planting the number of pink plastic lawn flamingos in their yard as they were old. So if you were turning fifty there was the very real possibility you were going to wake up to find fifty plastic flamingos camped on your lawn.

Apparently it's a prank that's sometimes used as a fundraiser, especially for schools and churches and clubs, because it's totally harmless and even the victims think it's funny. When money is involved, it usually goes something like this: a note is taped to the door stating that you've been pranked (in case there was any other realistic explanation for the fact that you had a fuckton of flamingos in your yard), and offering you the option of paying $1 to have them removed, $2 to have them removed and put in someone else's yard, and $3 to have them removed AND put them in someone else's yard AND buy you immunity from future flamingo attacks.

Semi-related: I hate baby-talk in general and it annoys me when anyone who isn't a baby uses it. But when I was learning to talk my family still lived in Florida and flamingos were a common sight. Apparently I was crazy about flamingos but couldn't manage the name quite right and called them 'fingos' instead. Sometimes I have to stop myself from using that word even now just because it's cute.