Just Not Funny

When I was 17, the summer camp I was working at folded, and I was left without a job for the summer before university. Luckily, my friend Eric had recently quit his job at the fish market and found gainful employment as a clown in a balloon store.  He was pretty sure he could get me a job.  I liked kids, and figured, what the hell.

I got the job without an interview (warning bell number one), and soon went about learning the trade of a clown, tying balloon animals, doing magic tricks, and so forth. So far so good.  It turned out, though, that most of my duties revolved around adults, not children. I only did one kids’ party the whole time I worked there (warning bell number two). The rest of the time, I was a singing delivery clown–you know, the kind that shows up at an office with a bunch of balloons and sings “Happy Birthday” to some cubicle gnome. OK, I thought, surely this won’t be so bad. I don’t consider myself to have a good singing voice, but my boss told me not to worry about that (warning bell number three).  Aside from being bad-tempered, he was also the cheapest bastard I’d ever met, and refused to shell out the few extra bucks for clown make-up that didn’t run.

I got shown the car I was supposed to drive–it was an old rustbucket that some previous clown had run into a tree, so the whole front end was accordioned in, and it was missing its sideview mirrors. It was also stuck in second gear. I had to drive the thing in second everywhere I went, including on the highway. The back of the car was always full of balloons, so I could never see out the rearview, and my boss wouldn’t pay for a decent sideview mirror. I took my life in my hands every time I changed lanes (eventually he found an old sideview from a Mack truck or something, and bolted it on the side of the little car…making it impossible to fit into small parking spaces). Also, because it had no reverse gear, I had to park it, get out and do my clown thing, and then when I got back, perform the following ritual: I’d open the driver’s side door, grab the wheel, step on the clutch with my right clown boot, and push off with my left foot, rolling the car backwards until I could hop in, start it, and drive off in second gear (warning bells galore).

A word on clown delivery services: nobody is glad to see you. Businessmen usually order this sort of thing to embarrass their coworkers. I once made a delivery at the end of the day to a high-level government department.  It was the hottest summer ever, and my makeup was running down my face in rivulets. I had five o’clock shadow under it, and I was sweating like a bastard in my stupid suit (the car had no A/C, and I couldn’t open the windows because the balloons would blow around and either fly out the window or blind me). I was late, and double parked the clownmobile outside next to a military truck.

I went through security (not easy), and waited awkwardly for the guy to come down from the 18th floor. In the meantime, all my balloons exploded on the stucco ceiling, and so an angry, impatient man was called away from work to receive limp bits of damp rubber on the end of some string from a melting, shaggy clown who sang “Happy Birthday” off-key in the reception area. I didn’t get a tip.

I also made deliveries to people I knew from high school (mortifying), and to a man who was contemplating suicide (depressing and scary).  I finally threw in the towel when my boss told me that he was expanding the clientele of the balloon store, and that my new duties would include dressing up as Tarzan for middle-aged ladies’ parties.

I never really forgave my friend Eric for getting me this job.