Punchy

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I hate clowns. In my childhood bedroom, there was a hand-painted clown lamp that sat on my bedside table until I was eight years old. Why only until I was eight? Because that’s how old I was when the movie Poltergeist was released. If you don’t know why this is pivotal, go watch the movie. My older sister took me to the premiere showing at our local movie theater, and needless to say, two days later my clown lamp mysteriously broke.

As I got older, Killer Clowns from Outer Space, Pennywise, a John Wayne Gacy documentary, and that damn Chucky doll added to my coulrophobia. I realize Chucky wasn’t a clown, but his hair was orange and he was evil, so close enough. It’s not like I freak out and have a panic attack any time I see a clown, but I have a strong aversion to wanting to look at them. I’m not sure what will happen if I stare too long into their jumbo painted eyes, but I’m convinced that’s exactly why I’m still alive. That said, any chance I get to rid the world of one less clown, I strap on my daypack and take one for the team.

So, given my disdain for clowns, you can imagine my reaction when I start to back out of my driveway one day and there’s a homicidal clown staring at me through the back window of Black Momba, my kid hauler swagger wagon. Breaks were slammed, several heartbeats were skipped, and two kids suffered whiplash.

It took me a sec to realize it wasn’t the Seattle Pier clown from the photo above, coming to seek his giggle-infused revenge, or that I wasn’t going to jail for finally running over and killing a clown. I refocused on the twisted face staring back at me through my rear-view mirror, and then it hit me. There are only a handful of people who would be ballsy enough to prank me with a clown.

I threw Black Momba into park and frantically pulled up my security cam footage, trying to ignore the roaring laughter from the two rows in the back. And there it was, not an hour before. I watched in horror as they shoved that clown up under the back-windshield wiper so he’d stay put, then blatantly danced in front of the camera all proud of themselves. I could feel that part of me that loathed being pranked bubbling up inside of me, mostly because I didn’t think of it first.

Those. Biatches.

I called my husband, Dean, who was inside the house, and explained that I was in need of clown removal outside in the driveway. When he came outside and saw the kids pointing to the clown all giddy with excitement and me bursting into flames in the front seat, his amused grin quickly turned sour as he realized a war had just be waged. He panicked, pleading that he had nothing to do with it. We’d had a prank war for years but called it off when it got out of hand, so he knew there was no way I was going to let this go.

Clown threats were Defcon One. 

I took a picture of Dean removing that thing from Black Momba and sent it to the culprits with several threats to their wellbeing. Within seconds my phone blew up with “LMFAO,” wildly inappropriate comments, and random pictures they took of themselves carrying out their attack. And this is exactly why I love them. There are no boundaries we won’t cross. Well, me and Lisa1, anyway. Carmen usually talks us out of the really bad ideas, and Lisa2 can go either way. 

But as it turns out, they weren’t the original instigators of the idea. It was Lisa1’s husband, Malcolm, who can be blamed for this entire, admittedly juvenile saga. That morning, he stopped at his neighbor’s garage sale and stumbled across this sorry excuse for a clown decoration. Standing around two and a half feet tall and wearing the stereotypical two-toned clown jumpsuit, he’s basically a dressed-up PVC pipe with clown feet and an insanely ugly face. He has a sound box that doesn’t work (thank God), and I’m not sure if he was meant to be a Halloween decoration or a toy, but his face lands somewhere in the middle. His hair is orange, of course, and the tip of his nose is dented in as if he fell over and face planted onto a porch he was decorating. Or someone punched him because he’s so ugly. And that’s exactly how he got his name…Punchy. 

Lisa1 can come up with a good bad idea out of thin air, and when Malcolm presented her with Punchy the game was afoot, birthing the most epic prank war in the history of prank wars. Okay, maybe not, but to my tribe, randomly “gifting” Punchy to each other when least expected has brought so much fearful joy into our suburban lives. So, I guess we can thank Malcolm for that.

The rules are simple. If you get Punchy, then you get to pick who gets him next. The basic chain of events goes like this:

1.      Choose your target. Must be in our friend group, which consists mostly of Jazzercise addicts who habitually end up at a bar after class.

2.      Plan your attack. It must evoke both fear and laughter simultaneously. Group events such as birthdays or stealth home invasions are frequent venues.

3.      Determine accessory gift to attach to Punchy. Usually has something to do with who the target is. All gifts are to remain with Punchy and follow him wherever he goes. He has a ton of swag!

4.      Coordinate with the target’s husband, kids, or whoever may be home during the attack. Especially Caroline’s because he shoots first.

5.      Either drop all kid duties on your husband for a few hours or wait till they’re in bed.

6.      Pick up available accomplices.

7.      Carry out your attack and fail miserably at keeping giggle fits to a low volume.

8.      Take a glorified selfie with Punchy. Unless you get caught. If this happens, your lame ass has to keep Punchy and try again, and your failure will be ridiculed on social media.

9.      Wait till target blows up phones with pictures showing they have found Punchy in their bed, car trunk, office…wherever you put him.

10.   Pat yourself on the back and revel in the knowledge that you had a win today. It may have been the only one, so take it.

11.   Laugh at how pissed the target is that she’s now stuck with Punchy in her house until she can coordinate the next attack.

12.   Come clean and post selfies of you and your accomplices during the attack.

13.   World learns of yet another successful mission via social media.

These rules just kind of made themselves. And really, there are no rules. But accessory gifts and “pics or it didn’t happen” are pretty standard. Add in the fact that alcohol is usually involved, and you never know what a Punchy attack will yield. He could end up strapped to a yard trellis, stalking our town’s Christmas Tree lighting, on a porch (made even better if there’s a porch cam), in a car, on a car, in someone’s bed…anywhere, really.

But this post isn’t just about a group of women running wild through the hills of Camas at night, scaring each other with a demented clown. I mean, it is, but it’s about so much more than that. It’s about how one fugly, throw-away garage sale clown became the poster child for a bit of harmless fun and brought together the most amazing group of women I know. It’s about how giving the gift of love in the most unexpected form can feed the soul, and how just when you may be feeling a bit mundane, a whisp of orange hair peeking through a cracked front door can turn your frown upside-down.

So, the next time you wake to a clown hanging from your front yard tree, Keep it Golden, Girl. Someone loves you.

Golden Girls Episode Recommendation: S5E5 Love Under the Big Top

October 2, 2017 to present: 22 Punchy Attacks & Counting

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