I enjoy shopping. This may not be the manliest of all activities, but I feel I can get away with saying this. Not that I need to defend myself, but I also enjoy playing football and golf, drinking beer, discussing different sporting events, power tools, and making out with girls. So there.
But I do not enjoy clowns. Once, when I was in grade school, Ronald McDonald and all his friends made a special appearance at my school for a fundraising event. The gym lights were turned down, and there were hundreds of kids all sitting on the floor not knowing why because it was a surprise, but anticipating the best.
Suddenly, the entire crew of McFriends ran into the gym, immediately
causing an uproar. They put on a good show for a while, and then asked
for a volunteer, to which every child raised their hand, including me.
Much to my euphoria, I was chosen. Ronald and Grimace pulled me from the
crowd, and carried me up to the stage on a stretcher. En route to the
stage, Ronald told me to listen to Grimace and him because they would
be giving me stage direction. Easy enough. I was supposed to play some
sort of medical
patient, and as they stood me up from the stretcher I heard Ronald
whisper, “Now fall backwards.” Doing as I was told, and totally trusting
the clown, I began to lean back on my heels and tip back.
The next thing I remember is hitting the cold, hard gym floor and everybody
in the entire school laughing at me. No one caught me. I landed on my
tailbone followed by my head, and if I recall correctly, neither hit was
pleasant. I probably should have been rushed to the hospital, or taken
to the nurse's office, or at least helped by a teacher. This was not the
case.
Instead, Ronald
yelled at me, telling me that I could've been hurt and why didn't
I do what he told me? I felt betrayed. I did exactly what the clown told
me to do, got hurt and was subsequently berated. All of this happened
in about a 15-second span.
I have never trusted a clown since.
I think people who dislike clowns – and there are a lot of us – only
grow to hate them. They enjoy them as children, until one day they have
an experience that changes the way they view clowns forever. We forget
that clowning is a profession, albeit a slightly odd one, that is nothing
but serious to those practicing it. There are rules to being a clown,
and people go to private institutions, namely, Clown
College, to learn these rules. So, on one hand I've built clowns into
these entities of childhood trauma á là Stephen King's It
, but on the other, I have to admit a clown's gotta eat. It follows
that clowns also have to pay the rent, fill up the gas tank and send flowers
on Mother's Day.
Knowing all of this, I feel a little ridiculous hating clowns at age
26. It is this ridiculousness that compels me to resolve this dual nature
of clowns. I chose the most obvious route: I decided to run my Saturday
afternoon errands dressed as one. As I embarked on my journey, I had a
few preconceived notions:
• I thought that a random clown out on the street would mesmerize kids.
• Parents would be freaked out by the psycho dressed up as a clown walking around.
• Sales associates would possibly escort me out of their stores because, although it's not against the rules to dress like a clown, there's something very suspicious about a clown going shopping.
I began my morning in street clothes, wearing jeans and a t-shirt under my jacket. I had on my headphones and carried my Starbucks to Water Tower Place, where I knew there was a bathroom I could use to change. I chuckled to myself as I walked, thinking that I was blending in right then, but in half an hour I would stand out like a … well, like a clown in the middle of downtown Chicago.
In the bathroom, the first thing I did was apply my clown makeup. Unfortunately, no one entered until I was just about done: a middle-aged gentleman. He just started laughing out loud.
“Not what I expected to see this morning, that's for sure,” he told me.
I didn't really need to go anywhere in Water Tower, so I just rode up and down the escalator a few times. Surprisingly, for the most part people ignored me. I suppose, to be more accurate, they pretended to ignore me; they did not, however, do this well. I would get a sideways glance or sometimes a double-take, and then they looked off into space with a very confused look on their face. I could tell that they were silently asking themselves, “did I just see a clown?”
I wandered out onto Michigan Avenue and crossed the street to head into the next building. After a few honks of the horn and waves from random passersby, I went into J. Crew, specifically looking to buy a belt that I've had my eye on for a few months. I found it right away, but then began to look at other items, toting around the belt and a few other random things I thought about purchasing.
I was standing at a rack of suits when Gina, the sales associate, approached me.
“Is there anything I can help you find? Maybe a particular size or something?” she inquired, very sheepishly.
“Nah, I'm just browsing. Thanks.” I replied.
 Gina let out a little nervous laughter.
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