Punching Bozo in the head: another terror-clown, this one wielding an axe

My wife, who I love dearly, sometimes asks me silly questions.  She has a legitimate masters degree (not from a rodeo college or an online directional school – eastern this, southern that) and a bachelor’s degree from Arizona, which still counts.  She has asked me on repeated occasions why I would want to punch a clown in the head.  We’re not talking about Ronald McDonald at a kid’s birthday party, at an actual McDonald’s location – though the new iteration might cause a spontaneous assault.  Look at him.  He needs to be punched.  

New, creepy Ronald

No, we’re talking about someone still dressed as Ronald McDonald, alone in a bar after whatever he was doing, staring at people quietly over a brew. This actually happened not so long ago in Midtown Houston, and Houstonians – ever fonts of wisdom and discretion – did not actually punch him.  I was not there, obviously.  Because there would have been a punch in the head. 

Actual clown - probably has an axe

I’m also sort of not talking about circus clowns, because while they are generally just doing a job, it’s a particularly crazy job.  No, my wife was not raised just outside Chicago in the 80’s and apparently liked the Stephen King book, “It” and found it to be exquisite fiction.  Those around me found it way, way too close to reality. 

When I have chronicled the escapades of the terror clowns of England, then their copycats on Staten Island   and then continental Europe, and God help us, cartel hit-clowns, wife has thought me peculiar, especially when she asked what I would do if there was a clown standing on our street with a balloon at night staring at the house.  He would have been punched. 

He will bite a clown in the balls

She is a religious woman and asked, “What would Jesus do in such a situation?”  Jesus would exorcise the demons from the clown, and then his best buddy, the unmentioned apostle Biff, would have probably punched the clown in the head just to make sure.

Which brings us back to the news of the week: there is a warrant out for the arrest of an axe-wielding clown in North Carolina.   Seriously, there is an APB for chuckles the clown.  Chuckles, we’ll call this joker, came up to a woman’s home at four in the morning wearing a clown mask and a multi-colored wig.  He also came with an axe and when she opened the door, he swung at her.  Chuckles apparently missed and the woman snatched the clown mask off him and knew him as an acquaintance and called the 5-0 who put out an APB.  The shocking thing about this story is not that a clown was swinging an axe at four in the morning. The shocking thing is that this didn’t happen in Florida.

So, this leads to a couple of pro-tips: first, ladies, if there is a clown outside your home at four in the morning, don’t open the door to dodge the axe.  Second; if you see a clown outside your door at four in the morning, assume he has an axe.  And, if you aren’t prepared to punch him in the head, make sure you abide by the third protip: get a dog. Preferably one who will bite the clown in the balls.   Yes, ladies, there are such dogs, and you need one. There are for bad boyfriends and terror clowns.  I bet this one was one in the same.

Texas Armadillo Fights Back, Takes Revenge for Animal World

Loyal readers of this blog, I have been gone far too long.  What started as a hiatus as Florida seemed to be in a winter hibernation from its tom-foolery, stretched into the summer.  Loyal readers sent me story ideas, to which I said, “meh, it’s not a terror-clown fighting a drunken feral hog.  Nobody has gotten taco drunk.” 

What? You want a piece of me?

In reality, I was spending my writing time finishing my second novel, called Ghosts of the Mid-Country, which should be out by Thanksgiving.  The only way to get that done and also run a law practice was to ignore the crazy for a while. Pretend it wasn’t happening.  That couldn’t happen, though, so I have a backlog of taco drive-in humor. And Florida, you sunburnt, shriveled mistress, I can’t take my eyes off you for long.

So, you may ask, loyal reader, what broke me out of my hiatus?  Was it in fact a drunken feral hog in Florida attacking a convention full of scary clowns?  No, alas it wasn’t, though I’m sure that will happen any day now.   No, in these days where zebra lives don’t matter and lions are lionized for being friendly and dentists are finally called out for what they are: sadists (seriously, who else goes into dentistry but sadists, except perhaps masochists who like to stare at funky gums all day and plead with people who are bullsh*tting about actually flossing).  There was the sadistic dentist who wiped out a friendly African killing machine on a trophy hunt.   In these days where the dentist decided to mock the James Patterson show  about animals rising up by wiping out the friendliest lion in Zimbabwe, the animals had to actually fight back.  Not theoretically, actually. 

And which animal did it?  The armadillo. The animal known affectionately in Arkansas as “the Texas Speed-bump.”  Now hear me out in my confession.  I have no particular love for armadillos.  They have been known to bring plague.  They have torn up my plants.  They have been known to fark up many a bumper.  I myself unwittingly and unintentionally wiped out more than two dozen during my time in the Arkansas Delta because those silly buggers’ defense mechanism to deal with coyotes is to jump up at the last second and bust the coyote in the mouth – much like my lovely wife busting me in the head with a pillow when she accuses me of toe-wrestling her when all I want to do is foot-spoon.  Dang.  That’s for another post.  But the armadillo’s coyote-mouth-busting defense mechanism doesn’t work so well on quarter-ton Dodges with steel fenders.  No, it does not.  It makes the armadillo not so much a Texas Speed-bump as a Texas Field Goal.  So it was.  So, we thought it would always be.

Until some dude decided to take things out of their natural order.  Perhaps he was prepping for big game hunting in Africa.  Perhaps in Cass County, armadillos are big game.  Either way, he got out of his truck and lined up a .22 at the armadillo and pulled the trigger. 

Then, damned if the armadillo didn’t fight back. This armadillo didn’t fall down like a lion shot with an arrow.  No, it shot the bullet right back at the Cass County big game hunter and busted him in the head with a .22 shell.  Full Metal Jacked, my ass.  Full armadillo jacket, that’s what.

Man with muskrat on his head

So, beware Cass  County. Stay in your truck. I’m not playing. Condelezza Rice is on the news telling you about it. (see newscaster and tell me that isn’t Condi) .

And watch out. The only thing you could do worse would be to liquor-up your feral hog population to try to get them to take out the armadillos.  Then the full apocalypse would be upon us and a billionaire whose been bankrupt more times than I can count and wears some form of muskrat on top of his head and insults a good 30% of the population could be polling first in a national presidential primary.  Oh crap, that’s happening.  Perhaps we should send an armadillo at Trump, or send an army of armadillos at his golf courses.  He would probably claim they’re all Mexican immigrants when in fact the bullet-proof armadillos are really native Texans.  Perhaps that’s the next chapter in the armadillo’s march east toward Florida.  You’ve been warned, Trump.  You’ve been warned.