Death of a Flamingo

It all begins with an idea.
Sometimes it begins with a plan.
And sometimes, when you’re wildly overconfident, it begins with a flamingo pool float during a snowstorm in Atlanta, Georgia.

January 31st started innocently enough. I woke up at my parents’ house around 7 a.m., squinting out the window at what looked like the politest snow imaginable. Just a few flurries drifting down. Barely committing. The news, however, had been screaming severe winter storm for days, which I (having gone to school in Chicago) had confidently dismissed.

“An Atlanta snowstorm?” I scoffed earlier that week, watching people clean grocery shelves as if it were the apocalypse. Bread? Gone. Toilet paper? Gone. Milk? Also gone. Because obviously nothing says survival like Wonder Bread glued to the roof of your mouth and Charmin Ultra Strong standing guard during a vulnerable bathroom moment.

So naturally, I went to my parents’ house for the weekend. And naturally, my husband Jacob decided it was the perfect night for a boys’ night.

We were both very wrong.

By 7 a.m., those “tiny flurries” had turned into something more intentional. I had a fleeting thought, maybe I should call Jacob to come get me, just in case. I love my parents dearly, but there’s a big difference between two hours and two days. One involves pleasant conversation. The other involves me being two bottles of wine deep and questioning my life choices.

By 8 a.m., the snow was no longer flirting. It was committing.

And Jacob? Radio silence.

By the time I finally got in touch with him around 9 a.m., the roads were a mess. I sat glued to my phone, watching his location inch along at 20 miles per hour, my stomach dropping every time it paused. Eventually, he made it to my parents’ house, where we were promptly snowed in under about five inches of snow.

What do you do when you’re trapped, restless, and surrounded by questionable ideas?

You grab a flamingo pool float.

Somehow, the three of us, Jacob, my little brother, and I, decided sliding down a hill on an inflatable flamingo was the logical next step. What we didn’t know was that the hill ended in a deep, unforgiving ditch.

The flamingo never stood a chance.

It popped on impact. Instantly. Dramatically. Glitter exploded everywhere like the world’s saddest parade. My little brother walked away with a sore butt, the flamingo died a hero’s death, and we collapsed into uncontrollable laughter, gasping in the snow.

And somehow, in the middle of the chaos, we captured photos that feel eerily cinematic, quiet, stark, and almost dystopian. A man trudging through a white void carrying a deflated pink flamingo. Snow is falling thick and heavy. Silence, absurdity, beauty, all wrapped into one unexpected day.

Atlanta froze. A flamingo died. And we ended up with sore bodies, unforgettable memories, and some surprisingly cool photos to prove it all happened.

Sometimes the best stories don’t start with a plan, just a little misplaced confidence and a very bad idea.