Impacting Journey

This past weekend we took the family to the circus.  It has been years since I have attended and I have to admit, I might have even been more excited than my kids about the prospect of going.  I love it all: the animals, the trapeze, eating grape flavored slush out of a tiger’s skull. 

My favorite circus as a kid was the Circus of the Stars.  Remember that one?  They had everything from Vanilla Ice doing asinine motorcycle stunts to George Burns singing “Young at Heart.”  Today our has-been B-Listers are whirled around a dance floor.  Back in the day we swung them from a thirty foot wires and beams WITHOUT THE SAFETY OF A NET!  Eat that Lisa Rinna… oh, wait – you were on both.  *Teeheehee*

When I was a kid, running away and joining the circus was on the list of things I contemplated doing with my life, followed by being Shamu’s trainer, a truck driver and a water chemist.  For about three months I had dreams of becoming a professional clown.  (Some would say that I have succeeded and to those I give the invisi-bird.)  It occurred to me on Saturday just how creepy the circus really can be and that the people who do grow up and join the circus must be of a “special” breed.  (Perhaps the Insane Clown Posse really aren’t that far off.)  They put a clown in a box, shove some fiery steel stakes through it and call it “family entertainment.”  When they cut another clown in half and carted away his frantically flailing pieces, Will looked at me with wide eyes and exclaimed, “Well, that wasn’t nice at all!” 

While I enjoyed every minute of it, with this circus experience I realized just how much of an adult that I really am now.  Here is what I thought of the circus.

1. The insurance premiums on this bunch must be through the roof!
2. With that set of boobs, the circus must pay really well.
3. I hope my daughter doesn’t get curious about the peculiar bulge in the front of that leotard.
4. Geez.  I hope his mother wasn’t planning on having grandkids.
5. I need to make sure the kids scrub their teeth tonight.
6. PETA has to be going NUTS in the parking lot.
7. Who on earth would pay $112 per ticket for this?  That’s a week’s worth of groceries per person!
8. I’m glad that kid isn’t going home with me. 
9. What kind of an idiot gets into a cage with 12 tigers?  Didn’t he learn anything from Roy Horn?
10. We should not have brought Will.  He will try this at home.