Clown Scare

Kids love clowns and clowns love kids. I loved clowns when I was a kid. Maybe it was the theatrical part that I liked.  Maybe it was that they always seemed to be having fun and everyone was laughing and smiling.

Then the creepiness of clowns took hold of me.

It could have been the John Wayne Gacy as a clown, the clown in Saw, or Killer Clowns From Outer Space.  The clown puppet my parents bought me in London did not help matters. I was sure he was chewing on my toes during the night with his sharp pointy teeth.

My brother and I were so afraid of the London wooden puppet man with the big colorful nose. We named him "The Tippy Toe Monster" and locked him in the closet until we were old enough to just cut his strings off and tied him up.

The scariest clown by far in the media was lurking under the bed in Steven King's scary thriller, IT. Nothing so far has helped assuage this fear and certainly not the "Clown That Loves Women" shown here groping me at the street fair.

I took a photo with the clown and then freaked me out even more when he whisperied in my ear:

"You really made my day."

 Then he gave me a giant smile that showed all his crooked giant teeth and pushed his terribly smugged horifying red clown lips very close to my face. I could feel his hot breath on my face.

 "He really liked me," I said later to my friends.

This fear of clowns is not uncommon. I know my fear may never go away.  I violently shiver just thinking about Mr. Clown.