My mom lives in Maine, which means we do quite a bit of our chatting by phone. Two hours here and two hours back means we can visit a hell of a lot more often than when she lived in Missouri, but we rarely have impromptu coffee dates.
So a couple weeks ago we were chatting and she said, “Oh! I was at the antique store and I bought you something. It’s just a little…something.”
It is, in fact, a little something! When Mom came to pick up TK for their first F&I War event, she brought me her find. A flamingo pen! And a what a glorious flamingo pen it is.
Pink! Pen! With feathers!
It even has a cute little foot so it stands up. And it writes. My mom said as soon as she saw it, she knew it was something I had to have and she was so right. What pink flamingo-loving romance writer wouldn’t love it?
For right now, he lives on the kitchen windowsill because my cats would have a field day with his hair. My other flamingo stuff—a pair of flamingoes that light up, a string of flamingo lights that clip on my awning, a really tacky plastic flamingo wine glass, and a lovely framed picture of a Florida plastic flamingo—lives at camp, but I think I’ll leave this guy at home. Looking at him makes me smile.
It’s definitely one of the quirkiest gifts I’ve ever received? Have you ever gotten an odd, quirky gift that was totally you?
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I’m insanely jealous!
One of the best gifts was from one of my Canadian friends. She had a t-shirt made for me that says, ‘Honourary Canuck’ on the front and ‘I’m really big in Canada’ on the back. I love wearing it to the gym-it confuses my fellow Arkansans.
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I WANT THAT PEN!!!
I have a friend of *cough* 40+ years *cough – hack* (I keep telling myself, I am not old, I am not old…) and for most of those years, we’ve been buying each other tacky pink flamingo gifts. Socks, pens, paper, wrapping paper, hats, lawn ornaments…for her 40th birthday, I sent her 40 pink flamingos set up on the front lawn of her school with a happy birthday banner on it.
I am totally jealous here.
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My mom gets me like that. One year for Christmas I opened up a present and it was an antique book. 1850s I think? Her best friend was COMPLETELY confused as to WHY she would hunt down and find me THAT. An OLD book?? Really? What’s wrong with a NEW book?
To be honest, most people had that reaction. So imagine their surprise when I opened it on Christmas day, stared at it for about 10 seconds, then laughed so hard I had tears STREAMING down my face and was COMPLETELY unable to breathe. I couldn’t speak. There was NO WAY to express how wonderful I thought this book was. I immediately opened to a random page and started reading. It was exactly as I imagined it would be.
The book? A first edition copy of the collected works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, including “Paul Clifford.”
Best. Present. Ever.
And if anyone still doesn’t understand, the opening line of “Paul Clifford” is the original “It was a dark and stormy night” which is infamous in its horribleness, as well as being oft quoted by Snoopy. It also spawned the http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where people send in the worst opening lines they can write. It’s fantastic. Don’t read if you’re afraid of laughing yourself stupid.
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13 1/2YEARS ago your Mom gave me a picture of our Mom when she was 16 years old for a Christmas present.At the same time that my then husband was packing his stuff to leave me and my daughter’s water broke.I opened it up to find this picture that I had never seen before and cried like a baby.Your Mom thought she had made a mistake giving it to me but at that moment I knew that although she had died when I was 12 she was still with me and that this new baby,my 2 girls and I were going to be all right and she was going to hold my hand through the bad days and the good ones.I guess your Mom,my sister gets me too.
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I love the flamingo pen. I work in oncology and 5 years ago a patient brought me a pen that is very similar to yours. He’s not with us anymore, unfortunately, but his pen lives on. It sits on my desk for all to see. We (me and my co-workers) have even named him. Such a silly gift that will always carry such great memories.