Land of the Pink Flamingos

This is a retread, but it was funny and the timing is right, so I'm posting it again.

I was working on another post, but this one takes precedence. In fact, this one takes the cake.

Late last night, Scott and I were half-heartedly arguing about whether or not I was insanely over-protective (or just insane) because I insist upon reading the package inserts before dosing my children with prescription medication, which usually results in a decision not to follow the doctor’s instructions and another $20 wasted on unused medication (I come from a long line of brilliant diagnosticians – my mother was steadfastly treating her leukemia as an iron – or possibly a vitamin k – deficiency right up until she was admitted to Major Southern Cancer Institute, by emergency transport I might add).

In last night’s case the argument was over Conner’s wheezing. Scott talked me into giving her the nebulizer before I’d read the insert. Afterward, when I read said insert, I was furious – not to mention convinced that she was in dire peril – because she’d been prescribed (and given) twice the recommended dose for 6-11 year olds. Danged prescription happy doctors. In any case, while I was keeping Conner up to monitor her for an impending heart attack, we both noticed two cars moving slowly down the street in front of our house. A bit later, as the great debate continued, I heard young voices from the street then noticed what seemed to be figures dashing to and fro in my yard. I watched said activities for several minutes before mentioning them to my husband, as my exceedingly sharp deductive powers have also been ridiculed by the aforementioned heckler.

On his behalf, I should mention that my last bout of detective work resulted in a few nights without sleep and the effort of purchasing and installing a full set of motion detectors around the house. Scott still curses me for the extra work every time we pull into the driveway and he’s blinded by the still unanticipated light. In fact, now that I think of it, the motion lights were blazing at the time I noticed the activity in my yard. “Honey,” I finally said, “I think there are people walking around in our yard.”

“What??”

“Yes, I think they may be toilet papering our house.”

“What???” And he went bolting for the garage.

About that time, I noticed a familiar tall dark shadow near the electric pole.

“Wait a minute!” I said, “those are our people!” just as he ran onto the porch yelling and waving wildly.

And lo, they were our people.

My mother, two of my sisters, and four of my nieces and nephews were toilet papering our house. They were also populating our lawn with pink flamingos, about 60 of them at my husband’s guess, a new twist courtesy of my mother’s innate sense of goof, a trait my sisters and I have all inherited.

Welcome to the land of odd traditions. In my family, we toilet paper each other for Halloween. Try to explain that one to your neighbors! We served everyone lattes (or juice depending upon the age of the perpetrator) and homemade pumpkin muffins and hung out until about 1 in the morning, then they all drove home.

Scott couldn’t sleep he was so tickled by the whole thing. He couldn’t believe they drove 5 to 7 hours round trip just to toilet paper our house. We did clean up the toilet paper this morning, but the flamingos are still hanging out; they were too cool to take down.