Clown Frenzy

So, Wende (my partner) and I went to my parents’ house for Fathers Day earlier this year. At lunch, my brother, a 23 year old college student who is totally full of shit most of the time, tells us that a friend of his from school had called him a few weeks ago at like 2 in the morning to tell what had happened to her that night. She was baby-sitting for her aunt and uncle and was having a hard time putting the 6-month-old down for the night. Eventually, she called her aunt to see if there was maybe something she could do to help keep the kid from waking up every five minutes. During the course of the conversation, Nick’s friend mentions that she thinks the clown doll might be freaking the kid out. The aunt tells her that they don’t have a clown doll ((dun dun dahhhhhhhh)). Nick’s friend hangs up, runs up the stair, gets the kid, leaves the house, and calls the police. The police come and they find that the clown doll is actually the next door neighbor who had spent the last seven hours in the nursery dressed up like a clown so that he could be closer to the baby.

OK, so OF COURSE this is an urban legend and neither Wende nor I believed the story. We even went on-line and found about 40 hits when you search google for “babysitter” clown. There are several versions of the story--one of my favorites is one in which the freaky neighbor disguised as a clown doll is replaced by a clown statue that is actually a "schizophrenic midget in a catatonic state." Seriously. Still though, this story creeps me the hell out. I find myself thinking about it throughout the day and each time I get all freaked out. And I keep thinking of all the pictures I’ve ever seen of an evil clown—by bedtime I have worked myself in to a frenzy—I am SO FREAKED OUT that I couldn’t go down the hall to the bathroom because I would have to pass the door that leads to the attic and I am afraid that a clown is going to jump out at me. I had to make Wende check the closet to make sure there wasn’t a clown in it—I wanted her to go through the whole house, but she wouldn’t do it because she’s was all certain that there was no homicidal clown in our house. I ended up trying to call Karen, my best friend from high school who had sent me a birthday card earlier this year with a picture of a clown on it and the inscription "because you're never too old to be creeped out by a clown." She shares my gift of getting worked into a terrified frenzy for no good reason. But she wasn’t home to comfort/freak out with me. So I just kind of laid in bed, wide eyed and terrified by every sound I heard until somehow I eventually fell asleep . . .

The next morning, Wende made fun of me to all of her friends and co-workers. She even conspired to further freak me out by offering payment to one of her student workers if he would agree to dress up as a clown and sit on our couch until I got home. Lucky for her, she decided against it. She was afraid if I walked in and saw a scary clown sitting on our couch I would have a heart attack and (a) die or (b) survive and divorce her. She was, of course, correct.

To read the urban legend and see the evil clown picture that freaked me out the most, check this out. erg