Another story about birds.

No, not that bird. Not chickens. Not this time. (But soon.)

My friend, M, and I have this thing about flamingos and birthdays. All too late I realized it would be fun to buy flamingos to put in her yard. (Much later I remembered there are companies that do this for you, but oh well.)

Amazon told me the birds would arrive the day AFTER her birthday, but often they only SAY that. Then later I get an email saying, “Your order will arrive early!” as though they are the most amiable, benevolent massive corporation ever.

I was banking on that email. And it came! Telling me the birds would arrive ON her birthday, but that was too late to have them on her lawn by the time she got up in the morning.

Plan B: Construct your own flamingo.

Step 1: Go to Hubby’s work and scour it for large cardboard.

Step 2: Enlist artistic daughters to draw and paint flamingo on cardboard.

Step 3: Hubby scours work for excess wood pieces and turns them into a flamingo stand.

Note the chicken food. That darn bird insisted on making an appearance. The diaper boxes are for recycling. Don’t worry; I haven’t been holding out on you.

Step 4: Drive to M’s house early on the morning of her birthday.

Step 5: Hang head and say, “How early must I get here to surprise you for your birthday?!” as she and her family are walking out the door as you’re walking up TO the door.

Step 6: Relish in her delight and her hubby’s laughter at the surprise of the homemade flamingo. Take it as a win even though I didn’t get to have it standing at her door, ready to greet her first thing as she stepped out into the day.

Close enough.

Step 7: Realize it’s just as well, later that day when the flamingos arrive, that I went with Plan B. In my haste to place the order, I didn’t read the fine print: the dimensions warning me that these birds were tiny. There’s four of them. Next year, in PLENTY of time, I will order two LARGE birds. Since they have four children, I will set out far earlier to display a family of flamingos matching her own family next year.

At least these are small enough as to be easy to store for a year.