I Wish I Had A Reason To Buy This Pooping Flamingo

While doomscrolling my Facebook feed the other day, I stumbled upon a video my friend had posted of her adorable toddler. It caught my eye because it appeared to contain a bright pink stuffed flamingo very close to vomiting. Its neck was waving around all weird and grunty-like. My friend’s toddler was giggling and squirming as he watched with eager anticipation as this flamingo did its odd little dance.

But wait … was it actually dancing? No … dear god, was that … a toilet? Yes. It was a toilet. This bright pink flamingo was sitting on a tiny plastic toilet, getting ready to take a dump. Okay, cool, so the flamingo is going to pretend to poop. That’s cute. But WAIT. This … was something coming out of that thing’s butt?! As I watched with a mix of fascination and horror, a beige, gooey substance oozed from the flamingo’s bum and into the miniature toilet, which I only then registered was clear so as to enable the viewing of the expulsion of said gooey substance. The flamingo did it! “He poopin!!” my friend’s toddler squealed for the camera. That kid was positively fucking delighted.

My kids are 14 and 11, long past the days of potty training. Absent the magic of this incredible pooping flamingo — which I learned via a quick Google search is called the “Little Live Gotta Go Flamingo” and was apparently a hot toy for Christmas 2020? — I was forced to use M&Ms to bribe my kids to pee and poop in the toilet. This shitting flamingo is a billion times better and I am super jealous that parents today have this option. I have zero doubt my hard-to-potty-train son would’ve been dropping logs left and right in exchange for watching this ridiculous toy take a dump in a tiny plastic see-through toilet. But no. I had to make do with whatever bribery I had on hand. Parents these days get to potty-train their kids with actual pooping flamingos! What a time to be alive.

Can you imagine how the folks at Moose Toys — the maker of Little Live Pets — came up with this thing? I’m picturing a bunch of suits sitting at a shiny boardroom table in a fancy high rise in their main headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, having a completely serious discussion about which animal would delight kids most if it sat on a toilet and dropped a deuce. “Perhaps a Koala bear? They’re adorable no matter what they do.”

“That’s the problem. We need a silly animal.”

“Fair point. What about a sloth? They’re silly!”

“Nah, it would take too long. Kids would get bored.” The room goes quiet while everyone rubs their chins in thought.

“A turtle?”

“Its shell would get in the way.”

“Crap. You’re right.”

“I know! What about a flamingo? We can make its neck do weird shit while it’s pushing out the poop.”

“Yes! Also we won’t have to worry about giving it arms.” The room erupts into applause while someone’s personal assistant scribbles furiously into a notebook. Everyone gives each other high fives.

Okay, that’s probably not how these things really work, but let me have my vision. The world is a dumpster fire and we all need any joy we can get.

Of course, Little Live Gotta Go Flamingo isn’t the first pooping product for children ever to exist. Fur Real produced a dog and a cat that each drop little turds while your kid walks it. “Everyone Poops” is a children’s book from 1993 that helps normalize the act of going number two. But the Gotta Go Flamingo is the first I’ve seen to utilize a clear toilet to deliberately highlight the rather explicit visual of poop being expelled from a butthole. Bravo, Moose Toys, you bunch of fuckin’ trailblazing weirdos.

To be clear, I’m one hundred percent here for this gross little toy. I’m actually jealous that today’s parents with potty training toddlers have the option of using this craptastic little flamingo to help make number two a bit easier. Hell, my kids may be far beyond their potty training days, but I might just get a pooping flamingo for myself anyway because it’s that freakin’ delightful. Perhaps I’ll display it in my hutch alongside my grandma’s china.

My social media feed, and everything in general, honestly feels pretty doomsday most of the time. But take heart: We have pooping flamingos. This weird grunting, shitting flamingo randomly popping up was a welcome, if somewhat odd, reminder that there are bright spots we can hold onto — a reminder that silliness is still possible, and perhaps even necessary to mix in with the hard and serious stuff.