i was thinking recently about all the names i've been called and all the derogatory adjectives that have utilized to describe my character, or lack thereof. would you believe that someone once told me that i had "the personality of a potato"? no, for real though! but i think the incident that i recalled with the greatest sense of poignancy was The 'Colors the Clown' incident.
in high school, a popular pasttime my friends and i engaged in involved telephoning the offices of slip and fall/accident lawyers. we sat around, drinking and leaving messages on office machines. "hello. my name is (insert high school bully here) and i recently fractured my spine in a slip and fall accident at Payless," we might say. despite what i imagine must have been the pretty loud background giggling overheard in those messages, they always worked. kids we hated were bombarded with calls from sketchy attorneys, eager to question them about their "slipped disc" or "collarbone fracture." but in time, as with most simple pleasures, this grew boring.
one night, i had a great idea. clowns!, i thought. what a source of unsuspecting comedy gold clowns could be. soon thereafter, i found myself on the phone with a variety of local entertainers' answering machines. Spaghetti...KoKo...Dimples...and our favorite, Colors the Clown. colors answering machine message revealed the voice of a tired, middle-aged clown who sounded neither very entertaining nor particularly friendly. after her long message about the services "colors" provided, she concluded with a simple "and if youre callin' for marianne just leave a message."
my friend melissa decided that it would be great if we got colors to call her childless stepfather and harangue him with confusing and absurd questions about his daughter's upcoming birthday party. i did the calling.
"hello, this is bill courtland. i- i guess its a little late but ive got a wee one who'd really love to have colors do her party. by the way, you do do balloon animals, right? boy, i sure hope so. and i bet- oh, its just crazy to ask this, but- you wouldnt happen to know where i could get a pony by any chance, would you? okay okay, give me a call on my cell phone at at XXX-XXXX."
long story short, bill, a cab driver, had had his cell phone disconnected due to an unpaid bill, so somehow colors pulled some clown strings and manged to get the telephone number for his estranged sister in CALIFORNIA, who was none too pleased at being called by a clown and hassled about a brother she hadnt talked to in ten years. pissed, she passed colors off to bill's aged mother in Ohio, who was like, on her deathbed and who was all, "My bill- my little billy has a daughter????" i guess she became hysterical and somehow got in touch with her son about it. fortunately everything was cleared up when melissa confessed that THE WHOLE THING HAD BEEN MCCULLEN'S IDEA. bill stopped speaking to melissa and her mother and moved out of the house the following week, after bellowing at melissa that her friend mccullen was 'an evil, despicable WORM with no morals."
shit, and you thought you hated clowns.
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p.s. last night at a bar, an aquaintance introduced me to his girlfriend as 'my friend brandon.' excuse me?