Ok, so here is a little story for you...

As a child I watched a local show called 'Blinky the Clown' which was on channel 2. As a kid, I loved Blinky. He smiled big warm smiles, had an amusingly raspy voice, and did all sorts of great tricks, or whatever clown antics on TV. Blinky was good.

One of my earliest childhood memories was of my mom taking the day off work (not an easy task, she owned her own business) and taking me to see a live taping of his show. A huge snowstorm happened that day but my mom took me anyway. She was that kind of lady, she came in at the tail end of a generation when women were seen and not heard and was definitely not a woman to adhere to either expectation, she was also pushy as hell, which is where I get it from.

Anyway, she took me despite the snow, in fact, we were the ONLY ones there. Blinky was so impressed that he got me up on the stage and said thanks for coming and gave me a Cowboys and Indians toy set. It was a nice, wholesome, childhood memory.

Which makes what happened to me a while back even MORE messed up.

Sooooo, I needed a monocle. I figured that I could get some really nice classiness if I had the Mr. Peanut look going on and set out to the antique shops. I was meeting a lot of failure (not to mention that there must be a government agency that regulates antique shops and ONLY lets you get a license to operate one if you meet the requirements of being at LEAST 107 years old, butt ugly, but still have the lovely demeanor of someone with a quart of sand in their vagina in the bargain to boot.)

Suddenly I remembered that someone told me that BLINKY had opened an antique shop! Sure enough, right there in the phone book was Blinky's Antiques! I was psyched! So I head over.

The place is small, and I mean SMALL. Like the size of a bedroom and there are items hangin everywhere, I have to duck just to make it through the doorway.

Then I hear that old familiar voice. "Yes, can I help you son?"

IT'S BLINKY! I turn around and although he lacks any sort of makeup I can still tell it's him. For a second I think of relating to him my story about his show, but then veto the idea, he probably hears a lot of that sort of thing anyway. So I tell him I want a monocle and ask if he has one. Now, bear in mind, this guy is like an uncorrupted parcel of my childhood. Even though I have grown into an acerbic cynic, I look at him as a remnant of my early purity. When there was nothing else on, he was like Mr Rogers, but in a clown suit.

"Well..." he starts out saying "....I haven't seen it in a while but...I know I have one of those son of a bitches around here some fucking place. Where the god damned shit ass hell did I put that cocksucker?"

"Wha...?" I start to stammer in shock. "B...Blinky?" I don't know what to say! It's Blinky! And he is like cussing! A LOT!

"Shit. Wouldn't you fucking know it, that fucking little bitch is nowhere to be seen! I'll be a mother fucker! Where the hell did that bastard go to? This place is SUCH A SHITHOLE sometimes, I'll tell you what!" he proclaims while throwing random items around.

Like...what the hell? I thought I was WAY too old to experience a childhood trauma but standing there, listening to Blinky the Clown belt out a diatribe of profanities, I am pretty sure I had one.

So yeah, I managed to SOMEHOW escape childhood being one of the FEW people alive who is NOT freaked the hell out by clowns, and then THIS happens. What kind of screwed up god is running this planet anyway?