"Now if there's a smile on my face..."

"It's only there trying to
fool the public."

Check this thing out. We found it for $5 at an antique mall in a year-round flea market, just outside the small town where my former roommates live.

I assume that, at some point in its past, this was a children's toy. I think it might have even had a tongue where there is now simply a thin, empty slot. I also think that this tongue might have popped out as you wound the key that sprouts from its cap, much like a jack-in-the box, making an appearance at the end of some tinny song.

Maybe in the past, much like a jack-in-the-box, this toy played "Pop Goes the Weasel" when its cap-key was turned, but now...now it only plays evil. Seriously, some of the notes have gone missing, so that now when the key is wound it plinks out the perfect horror movie theme, especially when the key is wound slooowwwly.

I'm not actually sure why we bought this clown head-on-a-stick; I think it might be possessed and thus we were somehow puppet-mastered into taking it home with us. I mean, we're never going to let our kids play with it, lest they suddenly find themselves floating in mid-air, or lest we find them suddenly able to ascend and descend staircases while crawling upside-down. (Though honestly, if we found them doing the latter, we might sign them up for the circus and make some quick cash.)

It's the kind of object you never really want to turn your back on -- in fact, it's currently laying on the computer desk and I AM KEEPING YOU IN MY SIGHTS, CLOWN, DO YOU HEAR ME? Hmm. There was probably never a time when this toy, even when fully intact, didn't scare the bejeezus out of everyone in the family whose house it inhabited.

You know, come to think of it -- old, harmless-looking children's toy -- found for cheap-slash-abandoned -- at a market in a small town -- don't a lot of horror movies begin this way? Should I be sleeping with one eye open and a glass of holy water on the night stand?

TRACK LISTING: The Chosen Few, "Tears of a Clown"