I’m about to drop a serious truth bomb on you, so take a seat. 

I am deathly afraid of clowns.

Like not just “oo that clown looks weird”, but literally “take my breath away, I’m going to start crying” afraid of clowns.

I hate them!

I’ve written about this fear once before, at the very start of my blog, so I think it’s ok to write about it again. I had an incident at my mum’s birthday which really freaked me out and so, naturally, I thought I would share my downfalls with you guys. Cos that’s what we do here at NLFF – we share our downfalls. No one is perfect (except Ralph Fiennes) so let’s just get on with this….

To recap from my post a year and a half ago, this fear started when I was just an adorable little thing of about 4. My parent’s decided to take Le Brother and me to the circus when it came to town one summer. I don’t remember going, but I do remember the dream that came that night when we returned home.

In this dream, I was at the circus again. Except for this time, instead of having (what I assumed to be) a good time, I was actually kidnapped by the clowns! Not only had I been kidnapped, but so had the rest of my family!

One group of clowns had my mum over a bag of flour and was suffocating her in it.

Another group of clowns had Le Brother and my dad on the trapeze and while they were swinging, they were running huge massive Sinbad type swords into them and cutting their throats.

It was traumatising! As I’m sure you can imagine!

So that one dream has basically set me up for a lifetime of hating on clowns.

Once, while on a trip with my youth group when I was about 16, I was in Niagara Falls and there was a clown selling balloon animals. I wanted one but refused to even cross the street to get close enough to find out how much they cost.

I used to collect these cute little porcelain figurines, and one year my mum found two little clown dolls and gave them to me. I couldn’t even have them in my room. They had to sit in her china cabinet hidden behind some tea cups.

Now it comes to my most recent incident. My mum’s birthday party.

As most of you will remember, my mum turned 60 a few weeks ago. For the last year, I have been planning and scheming and lying to her about when I’d be home, just to plan a surprise birthday party for her. I had it all planned and everything was in motion. I went home for Easter weekend and had a nice chat with people from her church. One lady said she would make the cake (for free!) but she would be late because she was doing children’s ministry at another church in town. She would be clowning there.

Then I got word that she was going to be arriving in her clown outfit.

UMM NO THANK YOU!

I made sure to buy little gifts for the ladies who were helping out with the party – cards for each and then a potted miniature rose. As soon as the party started, I began to freak out. How on earth was I suppose to go up to this lady, who would be in a clown outfit, and thank her for making the most beautiful cake I have ever seen? My heart was racing, I was getting all sweaty and nervous. I would just get my dad to do it. He doesn’t hate clowns! My dad isn’t afraid of anything!

Then I heard it….her horn….she came racing down the stairs into the basement of the church, tooting her horn and everything! I felt the tears start to come into my eyes! And then I saw her – she was dressed like a hobo! A HOBO NOT A CLOWN! Sure it’s just one step away, but thank the sweet Baby Jesus that it wasn’t a full-on clown.

I was telling my mum the next day about how nervous I was about her being there in her clown outfit. My mum just sat there, trying to hold in her laughs as I got all worked up about the idea of a clown, almost in tears once again.

So…there you have it… my not-so-hidden shame.

*pictures provided by Google and added by Hot Mess, because I couldn’t deal with it and she is a kind soul who likes to help me out from time to time*