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Sources confirmed that Joe “Mr. Winkles” Bailey, professional clown, seemed to be the only person who was not having any fun at Danny Denbrough’s eighth birthday party on Saturday.
“I guess I just would have felt better about the whole thing if I had been able to get a stronger response out of Danny—say a little bit of, oh I don’t know, crying or something,” said Bailey, as he pantomimed a clinically dangerous amount of tears coming from his eyes. “It’s not an easy gig, being a clown. Performing in different towns to different crowds every day, the only rock I really have in my life are the kids bursting into tears at every show. I didn’t really expect it to get this bad, to get to the point where I’d miss it when it was gone. I know I shouldn’t, but wow. Not even a few tears?”
Bailey has been performing as a professional clown since his debut show at the annual Civil Park Picnic hosted by local Girl Scout Troop 438 in 2007. Ever since that day, he claimed, he has set a very high personal standard for his performances. “There’s just a small part of me that wonders why Danny was so…happy. I guess it was his birthday and all, so he probably shouldn’t have spent the entire time rolling on the floor crying or anything like that. But still I have to wonder, is it me? Have I lost my touch?”
“Even the balloon act didn’t scare up much of a response,” said Bailey, as he twisted several balloons together into what might have been either a bouquet of flowers or a cat o’ nine tails. “I accidentally popped three balloons in a row and there wasn’t even a sniffle out of the kids. Normally there’d be an unstoppable river of tears after the second pop, but these kids just laughed it off like they were enjoying it. I’m just saying, their parents should probably take them to a shrink, because there’s clearly something wrong with them.”
Bailey is determined to make his next performance at Kyle Sanchez’s party this Friday a personal best.
“I’m going back to the classics with this one, back to my roots,” he said. “I’ll have the birthday boy pull a string of paper ribbons from my mouth. Maybe they’ll be a bit freaked out by it. Maybe they’ll even cry a little bit. I know I shouldn’t want them to, but if it did happen, that’d be okay. That would be just fine.”
