You know what’s worse than a clown?

A clown making those little animals out of twisted up balloons.

You know what’s worse than a clown making those little squeaky balloon animals?

A clown making little balloon animal fuckers just on the other side of a restaurant I’m trying to eat my dinner in.

Do you know what it’s like trying to choke down lightly breaded Catfish, fried Okra, Carrots, Squash and Zucchini, whilst all the time checking over your shoulder to see if that bastard clown is about to bring it’s ridiculously creepy painted face and bizarre garish outfit anywhere near your table?

No? You’ve no idea?

Imagine what it’s like to be nailed to the floor in the middle of a room and told each time you take a breath of air the walls on the left and right of you will move in towards you, eventually crushing you between them. Or alternatively, you can have your finger nails pulled off with pliers.

Or imagine having a rope placed around your neck and told if you blink, the floor is going to give way beneath you – and then they turn a fan on in your face…      and toss a handful of glitter in the flow of air.

Or, or … IMAGINE HAVING A CLOWN WATCH YOU EAT FROM ACROSS A RESTAURANT, the whole time blowing into and stretching balloons and twisting them into little shapes for children to beat eachother with across the dinner table. And you’re like, wincing because at any minute one of them is going to pop into his eyes or something.

NO PRESSURE THEN…. ENJOYING THAT HONEY BUTTER ROLL  YET?

I mean, what were they thinking? Making the kids happy? What about making the adults unhappy? What about how offensive I found his outfit? – that which looked like a badly dressed Walmart Greeter uniform? And his massive horridly painted on smile, disguising the completely creepy miserable face he was really sporting.

We positioned ourselves in the furthest corner booth away from the clown and the sudden realisation of what a bad idea this had been crashed down on me like a lightening bolt when I saw it walking towards me and while I needed to keep it in view at all times, I didn’t want to make eye contact, so I opted to watch it’s reflection in the window – the window I was going to have to smash through if he got any closer. I was feeling cornered and the layer of smashed peas and macaroni cheese on the floor under the table wasn’t an appealing option to hide with. Thankfully it stopped short at the end of the row of tables – blocking me from exiting for a second helping of banana pudding – something that on this occasion, I’ll let go.

And when we went to leave, there he was, stood at the Exit – waiting… just to taunt me obviously. Why didn’t he just bring his stilts as well? We all know how much I love stilt walkers. Oh you don’t? Don’t worry, it’s a whole other story – involves fireworks, a fairground and a small child in a pushchair who nearly didn’t survive to see another November 5th when I commando rolled over the top of him making the crowded park part like the Red Sea did for some dude in the Bible.

I’m sweating just thinking about it all.