(You have one more day to enter the Beansoup apron giveaway! I’m announcing the winner tomorrow!!)
Pat and I took the kids to this art festival on Saturday and as expected the instant we entered the building Maile and Laina were clinging to my legs.
What is WRONG with them!?!
I know it’s my fault. Mine and Pat’s. Both of us are social outcasts. I’ve learned to be a people person, but Pat rarely shows his face outside of this house. We’re home bodies ok!?!
As it turns out so are all three of our kids. Painfully shy.
As we made our way through all of the artsy booths Laina saw a child with a balloon animal and mentioned that she too, would like one. We had to find the source.
I’ve never hated clowns. They are what they are. Everyone has to make a living. But as I stared at this man from my child’s perspective I began to understand the repulsion.
If Laina could have crawled up my pant leg and glued herself to my body I believe she would have. She wanted a balloon…but at what cost? I saw her second guessing her decision as she begged me not to make her take a picture with the clown. She was terrified. We all were.
“I’m not going to let him touch you” I said, finding my own happy place.
The man was friendly enough, but I could just PICTURE him sitting in front of his tv with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken…grabbing for extra biscuits with greasy hands. He couldn’t have been even more than five feet tall and he was huge. He was huge and painted and a little creepy.
Pat spotted us and walked over with Kainoa who saw the balloons and wriggled to free himself from Pat’s grasp. He started running to the balloons and you could just SEE the moment of recognition as his eyes raised from the balloons…to the clown…and his face went from pure joy to sheer panic in an instant. He made it halfway to the clown, came to a dead stop, screamed like a little girl and went running back to Pat.
In the meantime I stood with the girls looking on as the clown made the long desired red hearts. What happened next really grossed me out. The hearts were a little uneven, so to create the desired length the clown put an end in his mouth and chomped down to pop part of the balloon and tie it off.
Time stood still as I watched him chomp and chomp and chomp again with Laina’s stubborn red heart. I was picturing chicken. That’s what he looks like when he eats the chicken I thought to myself. I was disgusted. I handed my girls their red slobbered on hearts and we continued on our way.
No sooner were we out the door did I turn around to corral Laina and find her sucking on the SAME freshly slobbered balloon end.
“EWW! Laina NO! Get that out of your MOUTH!!!!!”
She looked at me like I was on crack…which was really beside the point…and she continued to suck the balloon. I lost my cool.
“THAT was in THAT man’s MOUTH!!!”
Distracted, I took a few steps forward with Maile, only to turn back around and see that Laina had not. moved. an. inch. The look of horror on her face as she held that balloon with her fingertips as far away from her body as she possibly could and started to scream, is one that can never be replicated.
I rushed over to her and she shoved the balloon at me,
“I’m just kidding Laina!!!! I’m just kidding!!!!”
She calmed down, but insisted on being held for the rest of the trip. She knew the truth. We were all there. We all watched the scary clown chomp and chomp again at her balloon with grease stained lips. And now I’m left to wonder if my daughter will be one of THOSE kids with clown issues…I think I will.
Note: The clown pictured above was stolen from photobucket.com as I was unable to snap any photos of our own clown. Plus I would have felt bad putting his picture up…and maybe a little scared. That picture was the closest I could find to what our clown actually looked like…but I SWEAR ours was creepier.