Pregnant Flamingo

This carneval I had to dress up. There is no way ten year old pupils would ever forgive a teacher who shows up in normal cloths at carneval day. Since I had started teaching back in January, the question most often asked by my pupils was: "teacher, how do you dress for carneval?" I wish they would have asked maths questions at the same frequency (I am still wondering whether my explanations during maths were so clear and easy to grasp that they left no open questions, or whether they were so abstract that the pupils didn't even know what and how to ask...). The carneval theme for teachers was "animals". I initially thought that that's just something what teachers can consider if they want; but as I later discovered, it was a MUST. After a bit of thinking, I had the bright idea to dress up as a pregnant flamingo. Not that I would have ever seen a pregnant flamingo. But somehow I liked the idea of being a pregnant flamingo, just as I like flamingos per se. I admit that I didn't invest much time into preparations to get this pregnant flamingo dress on "it's legs". Just got a bit of pink textile, got my mom to switch on the tailoring machine, agreeing with her that we are both hopeless tailors; got some fedders for my hair and eventually a boa scarf for my neck.
On Thursday I dressed up in the morning, and drove to school. While sitting in the car my biggest wish was to walk along the shore of a lake in Kenya with the sun in my back instead of watching my hands freezing on the driving wheel. Once in school, everybody thought I am a slightly overweight ballet dancer with the secret wish to be a stewardess or a Unicorn, depending on where I wore the beak. The rest of the morning I tried to stand on one leg and wave my arms, to make my constume somehow credible.
And 90% of the afternoon I tried to warm up again next to the heater in my living room, telling myself that next carneval I will dress up as a brown bear. At least that costume allows one to wear ten levels of cloths underneath!