D. K. Wall 0:00
"A flamingo punched me in the nose." How is that for an opening line? Makes you want to hear more, right? As a writer, I always appreciate a good hook—a sentence that grabs you and refuses to let go. So you can imagine my delight when a friend posted that exact sentence on Facebook. It certainly piqued my curiosity—I demanded details. Rather than explain, she supplied photographic evidence—a video she had taken of a flamboyance—of flamingos. Yes, that's the proper term for a group of flamingos. Not a flock, not a herd—of flamboyance. And if you've ever seen them—a chaotic cluster of bright pink feathers, spindly legs, and curved black beaks—you know how fitting that name is. Amid the flamboyance, one particular flamingo caught her eye. It moved with a slow, deliberate purpose—each and possibly long leg lifting from the water, stretching forward, then sinking back down. It looked like a cat stalking a bird, if a cat had bright pink fur and legs like stilts. After a few steps, the flamingo realized he or she, I'm not exactly an expert at flamingo gender, but let's go with it, he realized he was being watched. His head swivelled, his beady eyes locked onto the camera. He marched toward my friend, step by ridiculously leggy step. When he was close, he turned his head sideways. Tension filled the air. Then in a moment that would have given Alfred Hitchcock nightmares, he struck. Yes, an unprovoked beak bonking. That big curved nose went for the camera lens, like a cobra striking its cornered prey. If, of course, you imagine a bright pink cobra with a long beak rather than a flared hood on its head. While watching the video, I couldn't help but think of my own run-ins with wildlife. Just this past week, I've argued with a mama bear and her cubs about who had the right-of-way on our neighborhood trail during morning dog walks. Not once, not twice, but three mornings in a row. I'm not sure who's more stubborn about their schedule. The week before that, a red fox crossed our path, settled into the forest, and watched us pass. My reaction to these encounters is always the same. I pull out my phone and take hopelessly unfocused photos. If I ever encounter Bigfoot, my picture will be blurrier than the famous Patterson film. But I explain my reaction to say I understand her desire to film the flamingo in its flamboyant strut. Of course, I've never been attacked by a flamingo. I suspect it wouldn't end with a beak bonking. After the first bird threw its punch, the others would join in the fun. The entire flock, or flamboyance, would slap and stomp me. You'd see it on the news with an eyewitness, let's call him Earl, recounting the horror. Yes siree, I witnessed the whole thing. Before it happened, I told Wanda I thought he was cuckoo being so close to get pictures. People just don't understand how dangerous an enraged flamingo can be. Anyway, this one bird, I can't say which one because they all look though they sure are purty, got annoyed and threw the first beak. That poor writer feller tried to back away, but it was too late. A second bird swooped in and took a swift kick to his knee, just like in that Karate Kid movie. The original one, not the remake. He went down, just like in the movie, and they all pounced. A flamingo frenzy. Worse than I'd ever imagined. Pink feathers flying, beaks bonking, long skinny legs stomping. Oh, the horror. I ain't never seen someone go out quite so, well, flamboyantly. You might think I'm making fun of my friend. I am, of course. What are friends for, right? But I also must confess deep empathy because of my own wayward wild animal encounters. One particularly heinous encounter from my childhood scarred me for My earliest animal memory involves our family German Shepherd. He considered it his sacred duty to protect us kids. Seeing my infant self crawling across the yard, he would corral me back to safety. If I ignored his gentle persuasions, he would take matters into his own hands. Or, more accurately, teeth. He would grip my diaper, lift me into the air, and carry me to a safer place. Fortunately, my memory of those first few years is scant. My real foundational memories came a few years later, as the 60s evolved into the 70s. Which also explains a great deal. For example, my total lack of any fashion sense. Our favorite summer wear? Basketball shorts and socks. For the younger generation, I need to explain that basketball shorts then, weren't like today. What is worn today should be called basketball longs. Baggy garments hanging to your knees. Or below. Our basketball shorts were short. They didn't come close to the knees. Or, frankly, the thighs. No fabric impeded any part of our legs. Except, of course, for the socks. Those reached the knee. White socks, devoid of any color except for bands of color around the top. No self-respecting teen of my years would have been caught dead in shorts and colored socks. What we called, old man socks. Now that I'm old, teens wear colored socks. Whipper snappers. Basketball shorts might have been the rage. But cut-offs were far more common. Outgrown long pants, at least those with the knees ripped out, had their legs chopped off to make shorts. Sweatpants, khakis, but the best? Jeans. Nothing was as cool as cut-off jeans with loose threads hanging. Don't dare hem those shorts One scorching hot summer day, clad in a pair of those cut-offs, I found myself in a petting zoo surrounded by farm animals. No doubt some scheme my father had to burn excess energy off of us, though he probably hadn't considered the barnyard stench coming off of us cooped up in the station wagon on the trip back home. Besides charging admission, the zoo sold little bags of feed for kids. No, not feed for kids, though I'm certain some kids sampled the wares, but feed for the critters so they would come up to you. Of course, the animals weren't new to this game. They were well-trained mercenaries, fawning over kids with tasty rewards and ignoring the kids without. Many a parent, I'm sure, assumed the cost of this outing was paid at the gate, but faced with a squalling child who couldn't get the animals to come over, forked over an exorbitant amount of money for a little bag of feed. with Sending kids with food into a corral of hungry animals is roughly the equivalent of chumming ocean water for sharks. It was only a matter of time before there was a feeding frenzy. One had only to see a pack of animals surrounding a child screaming for his parents to know perfectly well that another victim had been taken down for their stash. Which brings me to a certain goat. A very persistent goat. I had food. He wanted it. Game on. I tried to dodge him, but he was relentless. It didn't take long for him to fleece me of every kernel. I held up the empty bag as proof. See? All gone. Go bother some other kid." ,"But But a goat being a goat is never truly satisfied. He spied a bigger prize. My cut-off jeans. Un-hemmed. With those dangling, delicious-looking white strings. He reached out and nibbled. I stepped back. He nibbled again. I tried to flee. He made his move. In one fell swoop, he clamped his little goat mouth onto the dangling threads of my shorts. Once that goat vise grip was locked, he wasn't letting go. In fact, he took the shorts with him, dragging me, still in them, screaming my head off across the barnyard. No doubt, vague memories of my diaper-dangling days in the jaws of a German shepherd flashed through my mind. My father eventually came to my rescue, undoubtedly choked up with emotion and definitely not laughing hysterically at the sight. The great goat grab is now family legend, as is the diaper-carrying German shepherd. This tale has no real moral. Perhaps it explains a bit of where the ideas for my novels come from, at least in some weird and twisted way, and why I have zero fashion sense, and why I'm not too rattled running into mama bear morning after morning. Mostly, though, I learned a life lesson that day. Never wear cut-offs around goats.
