The Clown in the Car Behind Me.

This is the story of the turkeys in the road and the clown in the car behind me.

When I say turkeys, what I actually mean is turkeys. Literal turkeys with feathers and the pecking and the silly noises that play in the road every day as I'm trying to go to work. Ev-er-y daaaaaaaay. After the second stop light there is a little hill you crest and almost always there's a line of cars either crawling or completely stopped because wild turkeys are meandering where they please without a thought to how they are negatively affecting the outcome of my overall day. I think I will find extra pleasure in eating turkey this thanksgiving, especially if grandma didn't make it. That woman can't cook a turkey to save her life. I love you grandma.

However, on my way home having just exited the highway and waiting patiently with all my fellow commuters for the light to change, something in my rearview got my attention, mostly because of all the colors that I see in a day, these seemed extra colory. It was a clown, an actual clown driving what I think was most likely a late 80's Oldmobile Cutlass. If clowns have a sex I think this one might be female. "She" wasn't being extra cute or anything, she was just driving like everybody else. But I had to stop and smile and the sight. She followed me for several miles and I could see people in cars around me doing double takes and smiling as well. Some even honked and she would smile and wave for them. It was as if just by her being there in a car made people happier. And then I realized something amazing...

I have never before been amused by a clown.

It's true. In fact I believe there are few people who can honestly say they have been amused by clowns, and fewer still who would ever admit it. But this clown truly amused me. Why? Because she was doing something so totally mundane, and in her mundanicity, she was able to show her humanity.

Let's face it, Clowns are like aliens from another planet. They have some human characteristics like opposable thumbs but for the most part they are far too foreign to us to ever be funny. It would be like watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind and thinking it was a comedy. Now if one of the aliens had jumped off the mother ship shouting "where's your bathroom!" that would be hilarious. But they're not funny, they're just weird.

Or scary, I'd say the ratio of scary to unfunny clowns is about

50/50. John Wayne Gacy was not a big help for the clown cause. Neither does Mr. Pennywise (thank you Stephen King) or the clown doll from Poltergeist (thank you Stephen Speilberg). I had my own personal encounter with an evil clown as a child. Actually it was more just a angry frustrated clown but still...

I was at a parade and clowns were walking down the sides of the street handing out candy. I already had a piece of candy from one clown so when I was offered a Tootsie Roll by another clown I insisted politely that "I already have a piece" to which I was told in no uncertain terms "Take It Anyway!". One must assume at that point a clown can become disillusioned and forget the entire reason he became a clown to begin with.

So you can imagine after my less than happy history with clowns how surprised I was that I could actually look at a clown and find them even somewhat appealing. I think more clowns should take a cue from Ms. Chubby Huggs (I don't really know her name) and start doing less clowny things, they might see more people who are actually happy to see them. Clowns checking out the produce at the grocery store, Clowns in the laundromat, Clowns in the drive thru at Burger King, Clowns asking where the bathroom is at, Clowns picking up their prescription for heart medication....That's funny! It's heart warming to think that there's a real actual person under all that makeup who has to go through the same crap as everybody else and yet still finds it worth while to dress up like a freak if only to make other people smile.

ok then.