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I admit I went into marriage
standing to gain two teenage stepsons with my
eyes wide open. Bobo and Chuckles had
hardly escaped my attention during
Mary's and my courtship, with their clown outfits,
greasepaint features, and
skilled slapstick routines. To be honest, even I was amused
when Chuckles
soaked the minister with his trick boutonniere at the wedding, and
Bobo
released goldfish into the punch bowl at the reception. And it tickled me
when
my family, those who had not attended the ceremony but received
pictures, asked me
about the two Ronald McDonald types in all the shots, who
stood out a mile from the
more soberly dressed guests.
But my amusement quickly wore off at the
family dinner table a few weeks
later. I watched with resignation as Bobo adjusted his
false nose and
Chuckles played with his rubber ears. Bobo, 18, had just been suspended
from
school for sandpapering his shop teacher's false teeth, and Chuckles, 17,
had
been warned for what seemed like the tenth time about slapping his
two-foot long shoes
against the floor during class, disrupting the
lesson. The chances of either of them
graduating from the public high
school they attended seemed slim. For that reason we
were discussing their future with some concern. Though no one but me seemed to have any
bright ideas.
“Hello?” I asked. “Is anyone else thinking what I'm
thinking? Becoming circus clowns would seem a pretty obvious move. I'd say the boys
would look pretty good under the big top, given their advanced knowledge of costumes,
makeup,and comedy. Hosting children's parties would be a second
option.”
This was met with a chorus of indignant nays. So I asked Mary,
“Didn't you
tell me that your 21-year-old daughter, Tina, the World's Fattest
Female
Midget, joined the circus last year, after deciding that majoring
in
psychology at the university wasn't her thing?”
“You haven't met
Tina,” Mary rejoined. “She's not like Bobo and Chuckles. She's much more into show biz
and entertainment than they are.”
“These two aren't into show biz and
entertainment?” I asked. “What a waste
of hand buzzers.”
The first
clown to drop out of school was Bobo, he being older. He briefly
considered the armed
forces, but couldn't see hiking through the deserts of the Middle East in his baggy
pants and pop-up tie, so he joined a roofing
team. He came home exhausted from riding
his unicycle on the roof all day
and sick from swallowing nails. He quit one day when
his boss told him to
jump off the roof and land safely in a wading pool. After that he
stayed in
our living room, practicing with his hula-hoop and
sleeping.
When he turned 18, Chuckles joined his brother as a dropout and
took
a job as a dishwasher. He arrived home late in the evening, complaining
that
the steamy water he slaved in streaked his makeup. Also, the waitresses laughed when his
false scalp curled up in the heat. Soon he quit too and camped out with his brother in
the living room. The two of them spent every
night there, dozing, watching adult
movies, smoking marijuana, tossing
juggling pins back and forth and practicing their
tumbling moves while
talking in Donald Duck voices.
I stood it as long
as I could then told the two they had to leave. I gave
them six months to get a move
on.
“What'll we do?” they cried together, tying balloon animals to ease
their
stress.
“I can't tell you what to do with your lives,” I said.
“But you know, the
cir--”
They didn't want to hear it and ran to their
mother.
Six months later and they're still here, doing handstands in the
living
room.
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