COULROPHOBIA

YOU ARE CONSIDERED A FRIEND IF and ONLY IF YOU HAVE NORMAL-SIZED FEET and a NON-BALL-SHAPED NOSE...

My 3 year old daughter, NOT afraid of clowns. My 6 & 8 year old sons, NOT afraid of clowns. I like to think I'm a somewhat brave person. But there is one area in which I am a complete and total wimp. CLOWNS. They are creepy. The problem with this phobia is that once you have kids, there is no escaping it.

Clowns freak me out. I start to sweat, I feel nauseous, I feel dread, my heart starts beating faster, I feel like crying or screaming when a clown or just a picture of a clown is present. If I had my way, Ronald McDonald would be out of a job. My oldest son was a clown last year for Halloween and I thought I was going to have a heart attack...I couldn't look in my rear view mirror as I drove the kiddos to town to do some trick-or-treating. Just last weekend my husband and I took our kids to a local pumpkin farm and lo and behold, we walked through the entrance and there he was...a big-footed, red-shoed, red-nosed, orange fluffy haired clown...the image in my nightmares...I pushed the kids in front of me so I could dart around them and hopefully the clown wouldn't notice me...Everywhere I went he was there. EVERYWHERE!

There are no official numbers, but all over the web you'll find sites and blogs dedicated to scary clowns. In fact, I found a lot more sites dedicated to menacing clowns than I did sites dedicated to nice, friendly, funny clowns. Maybe they need a new Public Relations person... (don't call me) My family loves the story about how when I was 5 I was called down to the center ring at a local circus. I was called down because I won a drawing contest...I had to draw a picture of a circus (might I add, I had NO clowns in my fantastic, award-winning drawing) But when I got to the center ring, I heard bells behind me and as I turned around I saw about 500 clowns (OK, maybe not that many) running towards me... I thought they were going to eat me or abduct me and make me into a little clown minion... I sat down in the center ring and cried. Some of the audience laughed, others pointed (just like in those slow motion movies when someone is embarrassed) Time seemed to stand still, but the clowns did NOT stand still...They circled me like angry vultures. Eventually, my grandmother noticed that I was not laughing and she came to get me. My grandparents left the circus with me in tow and we never spoke about the "incident" again. Until I was in my late teens and recalled the story. Now it's a GRAND ole time to recount the story at family get-togethers.

It turns out a fear of clowns is a very real problem for some people. One website says people may be afraid  of clowns because a clown disguises his or her real emotions via makeup. That makes it impossible for the wimps who are scared to figure out whether the clown wants to give you a balloon or pull you down into the sewer. I found a photo of me as a very young child laying in my crib with some scary ass clown doll looking at me from the corner of the crib...he was just perched there watching my every move. I'm just a few months old and I look terrified...could my parents not see this? Could they not remove that terrible clown and burn it....But make sure it actually did burn and didn't jump out of the fire just to hide in my room and scare me again?

And WHY oh why can't there be a clown without that hollow bone chilling laugh that they all seem to be pros at? Seriously. Other then ax murderers and serial killers, no sane human should be able to laugh like that. If that doesn't convince you that full grown adults wearing rainbow colored M.C. Hammer pants are made of pure evil, take a look at John Wayne Gacy.

Did you know they made a movie called "Fear of Clowns?" We will probably be watching it in the coming weeks...because for some reason I like to torture myself like that.

First lesson learned: Watching a lot of horror movies is not, and never has been, a good idea for young brains still growing.

Second lesson learned: Would the world suffer in any way if clowns ceased to exist? I THINK NOT.

Third lesson learned: Never tell your spouse your worst fear. (That's for a later blog post)