I tend to say the Pink Elephant thing when talking to kids about being careful what thoughts and ideas they take for granted and make true but I don't actually keep saying it on purpose and didn’t notice I was doing it until I read what I’d written. But it does tend to pop into my head as a good example of what no one would actually believe in so I guess that's why.
As to where is came from:-
Many years ago I had a friend who, like many of my friends then as now, suffered to the point of despair from my somewhat childish sense of humour. One day, when out in her car, I’d asked her if she'd seen the life size pink elephant we'd just passed in the garden back around the last bend. She must have had enough at this point and decided to teach me a lesson and actually turn the car around and face me with my lie.
I guess it must have been something to do with a village fete (or her fate perhaps - Ha-ha), but I really had seen one: a life size pink elephant in the garden of the village post office. It just that it had been such a shock that by the time I said what was there, we'd rounded the corner. So as I’m sure you can imagine, she was not pleased to be wrong. The language when she realised that what she felt sure was a definite wind up, what could in no way be true, was there in front of her, very much as large as life. Staring at her like a great teacher from the world of the native american coyote joker, or court jester, was a huge pink elephant. You could almost feel it grinning.
And so started a tradition. I’d tell this story to people as a matter of course and when, sooner or later, she’d be introduced to them, they nearly always said, “Oh yeah, the pink elephant!”
It drove her crazy, but turned out to be pretty useful.
