With the unofficial start of summer today (ok it was really yesterday, get over it), I felt it would be time for an example of irony. I know I should be writing more about irony in order to fit into my name, but I've had other things on my mind. However, tonight, I feel like giving an example.
Have you ever seen an angry clown? It's the strangest thing. I don't mean like Insane Clown Posse, who are supposed to be mad. I mean a clown who is supposed to be jolly and happy but ends up becoming angry (usually due to kids if he or she works party). I saw this very thing not to long ago.
I went to Burger King (I know, I know. It's bad for me, but I felt I deserved a treat during a particularly rough day), and a child was having a birthday party in the play area. The children had finished their food, and were being entertained by a clown who was making balloon animals and dancing around. As I finished my meal, the clown had finished his routine and sat down near me. Obviously tired, he had hoped to get away from the children to rest and have a drink. Unfortunately for him, two of the children followed him to the otherside.
Now, maybe it was because he was tired, maybe he was having a bad day, or maybe he had some sort of backstory that can only be imagined in pulp novels. Regardless, he did not want those children near him. At first, he told the children to go back to their parents (he smiled as he said this). They would not, and instead they persisited that he do something for them. Again, without the smile, he told them to leave him alone. No good. Children, once they have something on their mind, are singular in their thinking. As they prodded more, our clown could not take it.
I want you to imagine a clown not unlike Bozo the Clown. Think about that smiley make-up and such. Now twist the clown's face so that he still has the smiley make-up, but the face is angry. This is the irony. An angry clown. A person designed to make us laugh, but instead makes us upset and unhappy (this is without the phobia some people have of clowns). So, back to our clown.
Having been pushed to his boiling point, Bozo could take no more. He whirled on the children and, still in his smiley make-up, bellowed at them, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" These kids were not ready for that, and their faces looked as if he had told them Santa does not exist. One child, the boy, slowly let his lips start quivering, while the other child, a girl, looked to the clown, then to the boy, back to the clown, and said, "I'm telling!" (Children: so predictable.) Even with the make-up on, anyone could tell that the clown knew he had made a mistake.
I didn't stay to see what happened next. In my mind, I imagined that he apologized and continued to entertain. Maybe he didn't. Maybe the kids turned on him and beat him. I don't know. The part that remains for me is not that he yelled at the kids, but that it was such a striking contrast. The painted on glee of the clown, yet his eyes burned with anger.
Truly, that is irony.
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