The Lamb Ran Away with the Clown

Half a tin of oil, I've noticed, is all it takes to convince a flabby circus to pull the pegs, which is something, believe it or else, that happens with frightening regularity — if I can be so mindless as to use that phrase. Now, I don't suppose this is the kind of going on that goes on around your neck of the woods, but down here where the grass is dust, it's as common as complacency. Every so Easter and every so Christmas and every so anything, that disgusting bulb of a truck, with its vertebrate of grubby trailers and motor-biking masters of ceremony, rolls red into town and sprays obnoxious waves of sound 360 and 247. And upon witnessing any of their assaults on the senses, I lift my leg, let out a great sigh and reach for the nearest oil canister.

The problem is, of course, that they never get the picture. No matter how many times I combat the fax machine or mail them a frame, they still seem to get the impression that someone in our earthly pit is positively four feet off the ground at the thought of their arrival. Now, I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but I think I speak for most of them when I say that nobody here wants those unwashed peculiars fumbling about with rubber balls and the backs of elephants in our humble pillow town. And yet despite this, I seem to be the only one who bothers to oil them out whenever Mr. and Mrs. Backward light up with the bright idea of returning to a profitless place of unwelcome.

Though shooing them off is a relatively simple task, there is always a significant amount of debris left to sort out. And the war raged in my guts usually falls to the side of the broom and I have to do it all myself. On average, this takes around two days to complete, and by the end of it I'm as flat as a balloon manufactured with a hole in it, and twice as useless. And it takes the better part of a week before the gusts can pick me up again. I'll probably die in about five years.