Clowns? Seriously?

My 10 year old niece, Lara, called me from Toronto the other evening. She was very concerned about my well-being. When I assured here I am fine, and that all is well in rural New Brunswick, I was curious about the specifics of why she was concerned. She said, "New Brunswick is part of Atlantic Canada, right?" I said yes. Then she said, "I heard on the news there have been clown sighting in Atlantic Canada and I wanted to warn you so they don't get you and Greg".

I laughed out loud. Of all of the things I might be scared of in this world, evil clowns are certainly not on the list.

When I was about 20 and living in Moncton for the summer, I had a job at the public library. I would often hold children's programs. There were these two little ruffian boys that attended regularly. They were brothers, and I could tell they likely were poor and were having kind of a dodgy childhood.

One day I was holding an activity where I was to be dressed as a clown and read to the children. I have full clown makeup, outfit, big shoes, ... The whole nine yards. I pretended to be just another participant in the activity and bounced in to the room and plopped my clown butt onto the floor beside the youngest ruffian. He glanced at me and said "Hi Donna".

Now I had full clown makeup on. That was just irritating that this little guy recognized me instantaneously! I actually look the same WITH or WITHOUT clown makeup?

In grad school I always had two or three jobs on the go to support myself. One day I saw an ad in the paper that an entertainment company was hiring clowns. I mean, people to dress as clowns. I got the job!

I went to my grad school classes and casually mentioned to my friend I just got a job as a clown. He  nodded and kind of looked uncomfortable, and then walked away. A few minutes later a couple of my other friends came over and asked me if I needed help. Baffled, I asked why. Apparently, my friend Orville thought I had a meltdown when I told him I got a job as a clown. No, Orville, a person can really have a job as a clown. Just like some people can have the name Orville, but have nothing to do with popcorn. The job didn't last long for me: I got fired for my poor balloon animal making skills. When a balloon animals busts, it can take out an eye, you know.

I was on a cruise with my family, and one of the afternoon shows was to have guests on the cruise face a panel of people who would guess what unusual jobs a person had. I got chosen to go on stage!  One of the panel members looked me over and said "did you have a job as a clown?". Ok, not that was a little over the top. I didn't even have clown makeup on or funny shoes.

I have a kind of love-hate relationship with my clown history.

So maybe the clowns should be scared of me.