My Parents Are Clowns: Research And Development Begins
Posted: April 13, 2012 Filed under: favorites, Getting older | Tags: clowning, clowns, family, humor, parents, postaweek, PVC 31 Comments »Part three of a series that started here
My parents didn’t become clowns and rest on their laurels.
Clowns and PVC pipe. Nothing good can come from this. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
They were active and spent a lot of hours doing charity visits. Time went by and they kept gluing on their noses, hopping in the (normal sized) car and driving off to clown gigs. There was no sign of them slowing down on the clown thing.
In fact, there were signs that the clown thing was picking up speed.
The House Becomes ClownLab
A lot of experimental clown work went on in the house.
When I came in to the house, I might find everything normal. Or I might walk in and find them at the kitchen table, experimenting with changes to their clown faces. I eventually got used to that happening.
I didn’t really get used to walking in, seeing what was going on and saying things like “Mom, Dad, this is Carolyn. Carolyn, meet my parents Baloney and Salami.” But like a lot of things, it was a bigger problem for me than it was for Baloney, Salami or anyone who filled the Carolyn role.
Prop research and development was constant. My dad experimented with a cowboy clown character and he built a horse to go along with it. Yes, a horse, that he could wear and look like he was riding it down the street.
People who came to our house were liable to be greeted with “for my next trick I’ll need a volunteer”. Ropes were cut and restored. They pulled thirty foot paper streamers from people’s noses. Occasionally, someone’s underwear would be yanked right out from under their clothes.
A friend stopped by the house to see me one evening while I was at work. He hung out with my folks for a while, then headed over to meet me at work. He laughed and told me all about witnessing the début of the latest prop – a giant mallet they’d constructed for my mother to bonk my dad’s head with.
Having parents who wore red and orange wigs was odd. But deep down, I came to think it was pretty cool.
Things Were Not As Bad As I Anticipated
A visit to our house was a treat. So was living there. My parents always welcomed my buddies, who loved them in return. There is a certain appeal to going into a place where a big mallet bonking could happen at any time. Despite and because of the odd things that went on, it was a wonderful place to come of age.
But then came the day that I came home and found a pile of plastic pipe. They were up to something. I just didn’t have any idea what that something could be. I thought about it, but I got nowhere. I could not figure out where clowns and PVC pipe intersected.
I soon learned their terrible secret. My parents were building the ultimate clown device. They had the materials and the plans to build the atomic bomb of clowning, and I was not in a position to institute economic sanctions to stop them.
My worst fears are confirmed in the next chapter.
Economic sanctions aganst the ultimae clown device? You may have the seeds to a John Grisham or Tom Clancy novel, here. Clear and Present Laughter?
Ha ha ha, I love that title.
This device was so sinister and effective at what it did that I shudder just looking at my rough draft of the next edition of this series.
Hey, I want the rest of the story!!!! And I really want to meet these parents of yours.
Oh this goes on and on. I’m looking at two more pieces. The next will reveal the clown doomsday device.
Holy guacamole! I can’t believe you resorted to the Friday cliff-hanger!!!
I’ll bet Mark Timmons mother warned him to wear clean underwear in case he ended up at that clown house down the block.
Please insert this flying comma where appropriate. ‘
‘
I’m going cliffhanger! it will be all anyone is talking about this weekend!
My parents loved my friends, but there was no love for that Timmons kid.
I was going to read The Hunger Games, but now I doubt I’ll be able to concentrate.
Kids are hungry, they play parcheesi. Winner gets spaghetti-os.
PVC is the ultimate material for fashioning just about anything. I’d have been quite concerned. I just have to wonder what the folks at the local hardware store were thinking. Did your parents get a Clown Discount?
I’m not sure if clowns get a discount or they pay extra. I just know that once the device was operational I paid a horrible price.
See what I did there? I took a legitimate question and turned it into a metaphor for my suffering. Boom.
Oh yes, the PVC pipe… You must have mentally blocked out the giant paper mâché horse, and the two-mile, uphill parade where it made it’s debut.
I wanna write about that one…
Ha ha, no I remembered the horse, it is in there. Now that you say that, I can hear him saying some very unclownlike things about that horse.
Sooooo…do your parents happen to have any extra mallets laying around?
I always thought the ultimate clown device was the red nose or the squirting flower. Your parents have changed my entire view of clowns.
Oh no, this thing was more dangerous than the squirting flower.
Great series!
Thank you much!
All of their studies in clown school had to go somewhere! You always have to be practicing and finding ways to integrate tough topics like chuckle calculus, hilarity history, giggle physics, and snicker science to stay well practiced.
Also, I’ve seen the big mallet and many of its descendents and related gadgets. They were all quite silly. Mommom and Poppop were surely graduated Magna “Clown” Laude.
You’re good. You should write,
I wonder if Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop is a Maryland thing.
There’s something pretty special about growing up in a house full of laughter. Much better than the alternative, though I have no clue where you’re going with the PVC piping!
It is horrible, Debbie. I have it drafted, but I may need counseling for the memories.
Oma, I am LOVING this
Thank you so much!
It is a shame Ozzie never visited your house. I suspect your folks would have made him less “colorful” by their mere presence in his life. But as it stands he is a clown of a different sort. Great series Oma and I cannot wait to find out what clowns make out of PVC pipes.
Yeah he sort of straddles the clown/buffoon line doesn’t he?
Baloney and Salami are great clown names. Sure to impress any girlfriend you bring around.
See!! I told you it was cool to have clowns as parents. Though, I do wonder about these pipes. The mystery continues…
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