Carl the Flamingo had just arrived in Milan for fashion week and couldn’t wait to explore the city. Unfortunately, things started to go badly as soon as he deboarded the plane and headed to the baggage claim. As he was trying to pass through customs, his suitcase started dripping a fishy, milky gray liquid all over the floor. (Dangit, he should have triple-wrapped and vacuum-sealed the bulk frozen shrimp he’d packed in his bag!!!) The customs agent pulled him aside and demanded to go through his bag. Upon finding many, many, MANY pounds of thawing shellfish in Carl’s designer suitcase, the agent pointed to a sign indicating that transporting meat into the EU was illegal unless it was for personal consumption. The agent confiscated the smelly baggage despite Carl insisting that it WAS for his personal consumption. Feeling defeated, Carl hailed a cab and headed to the hotel.
The clerk at the front desk gave him the stink eye upon catching a whiff of his raw shellfish-juice-soaked clothing when he approached the counter but was pleased to offer Carl the presidential suite upon running his booking information through the computer. After a deliciously hot shower, Carl was feeling refreshed and ready to explore the city. He went out on the terrace balcony of his suite and looked out towards the city. In the distance, the iconic Duomo di Milano stood majestically, its intricate spires stretching towards the sky. The city bustled below, oblivious to the pink flamingo standing there with nothing but a bath towel wrapped around his waist.
Without thinking, Carl had placed his stinky, wet clothes into a plastic bag provided by the hotel and had housekeeping take them off to be cleaned. Poor Carl hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d have nothing to wear when he got out of the shower!!! He panicked and placed a frantic call down to the front desk, where the hotel manager informed him that, unfortunately, the hotel housekeeping staff burned his clothes after one of the housekeepers fainted from the stench upon opening the bag. Due to the language barrier, Carl could only put together a partial explanation that the staff was apparently concerned about needing an exorcism for the accursed items, and they had to be destroyed. Annoyed, Carl mumbled something like, “The power of Christ should compel YOU to replace my clothes, a$$hole,” and slammed the phone down on the receiver.
He needed an outfit. ANY OUTFIT!!! He was supposed to be hobnobbing with supermodels and the fashion elite at dinner that night!!! He started tearing his hotel room apart for things to use. He managed to fashion an avant-garde strapless toga out of heavy damask draperies and used the silk bed scarf as a stole to keep his arms warm. He put on the drapery clips as if they were large hoop earrings and then placed the tortoiseshell Murano glass ice bucket on his head like some sort of bizarre statement hat. He glanced in the mirror and decided he looked flocking fabulous.
As he approached the evening’s red carpet event, he was enveloped by fashion paparazzi, all begging to know what designer he was wearing. Carl replied that it was a very obscure new designer. It was, of course, one-of-a-kind haute couture, designed especially for him by one of Milan’s up-and-coming designers. The night turned into a whirling vortex of drunken fashion debauchery with the glitterati. Carl didn’t even remember getting back to his hotel room. But the next afternoon, when he woke at 2 p.m., he found a room service cart waiting for him in the living room of his suite. There was a carafe of now room-temperature coffee and an open bottle of champagne that had gone flat. He lifted the silver dome to see what lurked on the plate below to find now congealed crab benedict. But it was the rolled-up newspaper that really caught his attention. There he was, in all of his makeshift hotel room couture glory, right on the front page of the arts section with a headline that roughly translated to “Carl the Flamingo is THE Catwalk’s Meow.” The article went on to laud his creative outfit, noting his Murano glass ice bucket hat as an exquisite, unexpected nod to Italian craftsmanship.
He wandered into the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and stared into the mirror. “You know, we should really make a pair of
tortoiseshell cat-eye frames with brown non-reflective lenses. We’ll call them The Catwalk’s Meow in honor of my fabulous stay here in Milan…”
