It Must Be True . . .

I just read this in The Week, their section "It Must Be True . . . I read it in the tabloids." Haven't stopped laughing yet:

"Two baby flamingos at Britain's London Zoo have developed a phobia of the color pink. The month old chicks, named Little and Large, both have the pale gray plumage flamingos are born with. In an attempt to feed them, zookeepers used a pink sock-puppet of an adult flamingo, but it only terrified the chicks. Their resulting phobia of anything pink has worrying implications for their future mental health. "We'll just have to hope they get used to the color," said keeper Alison Brown."

For some reason this reminds me of a recent-ish (January, 2008) study which showed that the vast majority of children dislike clowns. Are afraid of them, even. And yet, there are still clowns all over childrens', well, pretty much everything--from pajamas to blankets, and yes, even some hospital walls. So I don't hold out much hope for those poor flamingo chicks--they're just gonna have to get used to that scary, pink sock monster. Of course, there's always Prozac . . . .