The Laughter of the Brown Clown

I was sitting with the Brown Clown in the hospital waiting room, as my job often requires. I am President of a clown outsourcing company, and my customer’s children are constantly getting injured at the hands of my clowns. Especially that bastard the Brown Clown. His crusty and boring antics seriously maimed at least six children in this year alone.

He didn’t seem bothered by any of that though. He sat there with me saying nothing, just staring across the room at a drab off-white wall. He had a sort of grin on his face that would expand into a smile every so often. Occasionally he would break into a chuckle.

He’s been my employee for almost ten years, and so I knew by now that he was simply thinking about his drive home after we were done with the hospital, going over scenarios of what could possibly happen, smiling like a simpleton.

Once I’d asked him, on a similar occasion, what exactly he thought might happen that would be so god damn funny. He said, “well, I could get stuck in traffic…”, and trailed off for a moment. Then he began giggling like a fucking idiot.

The problem with a clown that finds every little thing funny is that he’s a relatively boring guy. I know this ‘cause I’ve seen him in action.

At a party for one little girl’s birthday, the Brown Clown found it very amusing to climb into a tree and pretend to nap. For a full hour. He didn’t actually sleep, he just got wedged amongst a few branches, curled up, and laid there trying to stifle his giggles. The children quickly got bored, went back to tell the birthday girl’s mother, and I received an irate phone call:

“Hello, Clown Outsourcing.”

“Yes, hello! First of all: I ordered a clown for my daughters birthday party, and he shows up wearing a dark brown suit that looks like it was made in 1908..”

“I see…”

“… and second of all, he came wearing a pair of normal shoes, also brown. Not giant, colorful shoes like clowns are supposed to wear. He didn’t even think to change them!”

“Was he wearing his make-up?”

“Yes, but it was women’s makeup, not clown makeup.”

This is where I burst out laughing, and almost permanently disfigured my face trying to hold it back.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Uh, no ma’am. But you understand it’s a clown outsourcing company here. Not everything is very serious.”

“Well this is serious! You have a very dissatisfied customer here, and I want my money back!”

“Ma’am. You ordered the Brown Clown by choice. That’s what he is, a brown .. clown. You got what you paid for.”

“Did I mention he is now sleeping in my tree?”

“He’s probably not actually sleeping, you know.”

“I don’t care! The children are still all bored! GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!”

I took a moment to compose my response, as clearly her anger was getting out of hand.

“YOU HAVEN’T PAID YET YOU GIGANTIC IDIOT!”

I hung up on her with a resounding “BONG”!

Now here I was, sitting in a hospital on my day off, and I couldn’t even remember why.

“C’mon, let’s go you idiot”, I said to the Brown Clown.

The Brown Clown let out another snicker as we got in the car and began driving back to the office.

April 21, 2004

SMR