The Evil Clown and the Dunk Tank

My eye is twitching today. Do you know what causes one's eyelid to twitch? Lack of sleep. Or epilepsy. But I'm pretty sure I don't have that.

I was covering the county fair for The Newspaper–which I work for–all this weekend, and I noticed that they had a dunk tank. A dunk tank, of course, is when some dope sits on a chair above a tank of water while people throw balls at a target, the hitting of which causes them to go in the water. And yes, I just wrote a full run-on sentence, explaining what a dunk tank is. I'm ashamed of myself as well.

Anyway, the last time I saw a dunk tank was at the Minnesota State Fair. I must have been somewhere between 12 and 15 years old. They had always had a dunk tank at the fair, but that particular year they decided to change up the formula a bit. Instead of having a community-type "bring the family" atmosphere around the dunk tank, they put a clown up there. An evil, dirty-mouthed clown that spewed profane things at people.

Naturally, this dirty clown was the highlight of the day for my brother and I. It was as if they had taken a drunk off the street, dressed him up as a clown and locked him in the tank.

"Hey! Your girlfriend looks hairier than you, man!"

Why was he dressed like a clown? Because the things he said to people passing by were so horrifically offensive that if his face hadn't been painted over, people would have waited for him in the parking lot and kicked the living bejeezus out of him.

I remember my brother and I standing around and watching this evil clown. Everything else at a state fair tends to become rather boring when there's a clown in a dunk tank shouting, "You're a big girl, aren't you? Yeah, you throw like a fat girl, too."

Lots of people in dunk tanks yell insults like, "You throw like a girl", or something similar to that. But it's always done in a playful way. The person usually stops the public mocking if someone gets mad. This clown was not doing any such thing.

"Excuse me, sir! I was wondering why you insist on dressing your son like a girl."

Within a few hours, there was a large crowd around the dunk tank. People were lining up to try to dunk him, and those who hadn't been able to were standing off to the side, shouting profanity at him. Of course, no one seemed to realize that the money they were forking over would probably be used to pay the clown's salary.

"A fat piece of crap like you couldn't hit that target. Why are you even trying?"

There were some women who became so furious that they were throwing the balls at the screen of the tank, instead of at the target. The funny thing is, the more angry people got, the worse they threw and the dumber they looked as they were throwing. The clown had people in a vicious cycle, and they didn't even know it.

"Hey man, where's your girlfriend? Don't you have one? Hey, don't be embarrassed; lots of losers come to the fair by themselves."

I'm not sure how the clown got home, or if they needed security to escort him from the dunk tank or not. My mom made my brother and I leave before the clown's shift was up. All I know is that the following year, the dunk tank was gone. I can only imagine the never-ending pile of complaints that sat in an office somewhere on the fairgrounds.

But nonetheless, seeing that clown shouting out barbs like, "You know why you can't hit the target? Because you're so fat that you can't throw the ball", sent me on the path to being who I am today. How, you ask? Well, what else do you suppose would make me long to be such a sarcastic jackass? I rest my case. Long live the evil clown.