On Please Please Please DON’T Send in the Clowns

or

How Friday the 13th, the full moon, and Clowns Local 442 ruined my weekend.

The initial conversation was taken lightly. “I have a large group of ….. performers….. all of us a part of a local orginization that are going on a pub crawl next week, and we’d like to come by your place for about a half hour or so.” He wished to pay cover for the entire group in advance. He wanted to limit any hassle that his large group would create for me and my staff. He wanted to be a courteous customer. Then he dropped the other hideously large red shoe on me.

“We’re an orginization of Clowns.”

He was serious.

Two weeks later (clowns have calendar problems, apparently) they Showed Up. 47 clowns in full makeup and gear. No kidding. Literally. None of them were “being” clowns. No flowers squirting. No happy banter. No prat falls. They were REALLY falling down, drunk as skunks most of them. Bad dancing. I asked three of them at the bar, with a big shit eating grin on my face, “So you guys are what? Bankers?” I got back three blank stares. This is what happens when clowns drink. I asked one guy later, “So, ya’ll all came in the same volskwagon?” He stared blankly back and said, slightly confused, “Um, no, we came in a bus.” This is what happens when clowns drink. One of them handed me a twisted mulitcolored construction of balloons that only bore a resemblance to an animal if it were part of said animals DNA chain. I asked him, “Is it abstract?” This is what happens when clowns drink. Later I had to eject one of them because he was geting undressed. In the CLUB! He had his shirt off and was going for his pants when I asked him why, and he responded that, “she wanted me to.” There wasn’t a woman within 20 feet of him.

I kept thinking, “Who are these clowns?”