Really Big Shoes To Fill

There are some crimes that are victimless. Bad choices that end up annoying or disturbing the status quo, but more often than not simply tweak other's sensibilities. I could be talking about cat juggling here, but instead I would like to address the recent outbreak of "creepy clowns." Certainly the children who have been terrified enough to stay home from school rather than take a chance that the mountain of rumors and innuendo that circulated like a Facebook Firestorm last week turned out to be real and true. Nobody got hurt, but the anxiety and stress generated by idjits with access to social media as thick enough to be served as birthday cake icing. 

We had a school full of crying children who were goaded along by their peers who may have believed the hype at first but suddenly found an advantage to spooking those younger and more gullible than themselves. The more the adults tried to reassure the kids, the more they were certain that the grownups were all in this together. It made for a very long day. And week. And month leading up to the day when all creepy clowns make their last, best stand: Halloween. Since that very tumultuous Friday, things have calmed down quite a bit, with attentions turning to other things far more interesting than a prank played by middle and high school students on their younger siblings. The scariest thing in the world is not someone who looks like a clown who will chop you into ribbons, but someone who looks like your next door neighbor who might chop you into ribbons. 

Not that I'm advocating a fear of your next door neighbor, but all that late-night rattling around in the garage may have some kind of nefarious edge to it. But who is truly suffering here? Clowns. While arrests are being made all across the nation, the business of clowning has been greatly impacted by the actions of those who pretend to be clowns, the creepy kind. Jub Jub is used to booking eight to ten gigs a month, but since this hysteria began, those have dropped off to nothing. Even McDonald's is putting their clown on ice for the time being, until things start being fun again. 

In the meantime, we can only roll our eyes and sigh while the world vents its cathartic steam around the notion of homicidal maniacs with red noses and painted smiles. And we await the next truly frightening possibility, coming at us a week after Halloween: Attack of the Fifty Foot Cheeto. Now that's terrifying.