Send in the Clowns.

I heart/hate clowns. (circle one)







The funny thing about clowns is….. (sometimes I crack myself up) people either love them or hate them. They seem to be one of those things where few people are down the middle. People say I am a clown most of the time. There are several reasons for that. First off, I am a huge optimist. You know how people are either a “glass is half empty or full” type? Well I take it a step further. I am more of a “wow, I have a glass and there is something in it” kind of person. I almost always look for (and find) a bright side to everything. Because of that, I am more times than not, a happy person. And because I am a happy person I am almost always smiling. And that is why people usually either love me or hate me.


For some reason a lot of people out there hate when someone is happy. They look at the dark side of everything so my smile really makes them angry. I often get the comment “Why are you so darn happy?” I like to come back with; “things could always be worse” or “I am happy to be alive” or the one that really irks them; “I am just happy to be here with all of you”. And then I smile. I am going to do an experiment. I have a meeting to go to in 15 minutes and I will put on my best smile. (I have a lot of things to smile about) I will come back and post the results. I am predicting that maybe 1 out of the 12 people in the meeting will smile back and I will get 3 or 4 snide comments. Be Right Back.


And here is what happened; There were only 10 people at the meeting today. I walked in with a big smile on my face and no one wanted to make eye contact with me. I guess they know I am happy and didn’t want it to rub off. I did catch two people smiling for a brief moment but by the end of the meeting everyone was down. Way down. You would have thought it was a funeral. These people are getting paid big bucks to sit in a meeting and discuss things. Ok, so where was I? Oh yes, clowns.

So where does this clown love/hate relationship come from. I think it stems back to our childhood. Clowns could very well be the earliest form of child abuse. I mean a parent puts this clown in a baby’s room and it just sits there staring and smiling with that smug little grin. You can talk to it, curse it, hit it but it still just smiles. It really is creepy. Have you seen the e-trade commercial where the little kid rents a clown with all the extra “coin” he made using e-trade? He gets it thinking It will be cool and then it scares him because he underestimated the creepy factor? That about sums up my feelings.


Then you throw in a movie like Poltergeist and we are scared for life. Remember that scene? The storm is approaching and the little kid is in bed. He looks over and the evil clown is sitting there in the chair and he sees it every time lightening flashes. Because he is scared, he gets under the covers and he would have been safe but Noooooooo he has to look. And when he looks, guess what? No Clown. Now at this point, everyone knows where the clown is so why doesn’t he? Why do they insist on looking under the bed when they are scared? Of course when he looks under the bed, the clown is there and it grabs him.


So there you have it. I like happy people but I hate clowns. And I am not alone. I hear Cannibals don’t like them either. They say they taste funny.

Have a nice day.
Greg