helen's fear of clowns

yesterday i went out to my car to drive over to john's house. i was parked at the curb as usual but as i walked out this woman in a little geo metro pulled up and parked behind me. this would definitely not be blog-worthy if not for the fact that she was dressed as a clown. yup, a clown. it was about 85 degrees so i know she must have been hot in her bright pink afro wig, full long sleeves and long pants clown suit, red rubber nose, and a thick layer of make-up. she was carrying a ton of balloons and walking into our apartment building. odd, i thought, considering that no one in my building is under 21 years of age, let alone 5 years old. but as she walked away i saw that she was wearing bright aqua colored keds. the cloth kind that EVERYONE used to wear in elementary school. i mean, you weren't really anyone in the 3rd grade unless you had a pair of keds. probably a couple so you could have different colors. it didn't matter that they had a really thin sole, no support, and that you could wear holes in them only weeks after purchasing them. i remember the really rebellious kids used to take markers and draw all over their cloth keds. man, that was alternative. even then, i was such a well-behaved child, never daring to take magic marker to shoe.