Humor by John Christmann
Circus Boy
It was a lot easier getting into trouble when I was a kid.
One morning, when I was about six years old, I decided to join the circus. It was a rash decision: I didn’t have any talent. But I desperately wanted to escape the bedroom prison where I was being detained for scarfing down six jelly donuts which my mom had explicitly told me not to touch.
The week before my parents had taken me to see the Ringling Brothers Circus in downtown Chicago and I could taste the excitement of arcing gracefully through the air from the mouth of a large cannon and eating as many jelly donuts as I wanted. It was the life I was meant to live.
As soon as I heard my mom shut the bathroom door and turn on the shower, I made a break for it. Ten minutes later I was riding my bike down the middle of Central Avenue searching for the Ringling Big Top during the peak of morning rush hour.
Nowadays you have to escape from home in a weather balloon.
Several cars stopped when they saw me, abruptly causing others to stop behind them and then others behind them. There were a lot of screeching tires. I don’t think motorists were accustomed to sharing a lane with a six-year-old boy on a bike. I clanged my bell and waved.
I remember there was a loud crunching noise, like grinding metal or something falling to the pavement; maybe a bumper. Traffic stopped around me and horns started beeping. I could even hear a siren in the distance.
It was all very exciting. Even better, I thought, than the circus. And I was the main attraction!
Nowadays you have to involve the military and shut down an airport to get any attention.
I pedaled hard. Ahead of me a police car with red flashing lights swerved across oncoming traffic and blocked the road. Another police car drove slowly behind me. From the sidewalk people were pointing and yelling through cupped hands. Some were even taking pictures. It was like a circus parade.
Then I heard the officer behind me make an announcement from his megaphone like a Ringmaster. PULL OVER, YOUNG MAN he said with authority. Five uniformed cops ran from all directions to escort me. Their badges glistened in the morning sun.
Nuts to the circus, I thought, I want to be a policeman!
Nowadays when police come to the rescue, you have to be hiding somewhere else.
At the police station the officers showed me their badges and their handcuffs and even let me look at their guns. The Sergeant gave me a lollipop, but after eating twelve jelly donuts and knowing that I might have to face my mom, I wasn’t feeling so good. So I told him I was an orphan named Bozo.
Unfortunately my name and address were on my bike.
My mom’s hair was still wet when she answered the door. The Sergeant told her what had happened. She was shaking and there were tears in her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or mad.
Maybe she was both, because after she hugged me she yelled at me for lying to the police.
Nowadays parents only get mad if you go on CNN and tell the truth.
It wasn’t until the front door closed and the police were gone that I knew I was in real trouble. My mom was not smiling.
She ordered me back to my room, but the lollipops and jelly donuts erupted violently from my nervous stomach and made it to the bed before I did.
My mom cleaned up the mess and stroked my head lightly as I lay curled up on the floor.
Nowadays you have to barf on The Today Show to get any sympathy.
My mom was a liberated woman. When I got in trouble she never scared me by telling me “wait till your dad gets home”. She scared me by dealing with it right there and then.
And I still had to wait for my dad to come home.
As part of the sentencing process she liked to place me in a no-win situation. She did this by asking “What do you think is a proper punishment?” Over time I learned that it was better to ask for something really bad, than say, a jelly donut. So I suggested no TV for the rest of my life.
My mom came up with a compromise punishment: I was not allowed to watch TV for five days.
Nowadays it’s the parents who are punished and put on TV for five days.
When I was a kid it was a lot easier. I didn’t have to compete with my parents to get in trouble. I did fine all by myself.
I guess reality was pretty boring back then.
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