Stop clownin' around
On the main MSN page this morning is a rather disturbing picture of a Ronald McDonald lookalike in the back of a police car, frowning and waving to onlookers. I don't know if I have previously mentioned my fear and general heebie jeebies toward clowns, but Ronald McDonald is at the top of my list of freaky red-wigged dudes who like kids. So every time I click on Internet Explorer (read: every 5 minutes), I get to see that unnerving vision. The story itself is kind of amusing, it deals with a Greenpeace member who chained himself to a Mickey D's distribution center to protest the fast food chain's practice of feeding genetically altered food to their chickens. Mmm. McNuggets.

Clowns of all sorts have always scared me. I trace it back to the Stephen King novel, "It," which I read in seventh grade, and then the made-for-TV movie based on that novel, starring Tim Curry as the scary-ass clown. Ever since then, clowns have been evil, horrifying and just really give me the wiggins.

There was also a mime that really freaked me out. He worked at Sea World of Ohio, which exists no longer, at the Sea Lion and Otter show. He was the whole deal, the black and white striped shirt, trapping himself in a box, wrong-ass mime. As a young'un, I never wanted to sit in the front rows during that show because he would come over and do his mime thing and it would just really put a damper on my otherwise lovely day with Shamu.

My mime hatred healed a little during Big Brother 4 when the mime entered the house and taunted Alison, Robert and Jun. That mime is OK by me. But he does not erase my years and years of anti-mimeism.

This is actually a common fear... anyone else care to step up and admit that they can't stand the sight of a big-shoe wearin', red mouthed, multicolor haired man in thrift store clothing?