The Greatest Show Adjacent to the Sears Home Store!

Last weekend I took my 3.5 year old daughter to her first circus.  It was right down the street, cheap and um...cheap.  At least the tickets were.  At $12 a head for the bleacher seats it was an easy decision since I'd just spent that much on beer for the day.  Why so cheap?  Two words:  Circus Vargas.  Anyone who's ever been to one of these knock-off performances knows what I'm talking about. 

Take the seediest carnies from the lamest parking lot carnivals you can find, throw in a gimp, a midget and a guy with three left arms, sprinkle them with some gypsy dust, remove the least felonious of the bunch and what you have left is a typical cast at your average Circus Vargas performance.  Add a tent pulled from a medical unit triage that was stationed just behind the front lines at Iwo Jima; provide patrons lush seating made out of used scaffolding and Tinker Toys; fabricate hand rails out of your electrical cables; heat your corn dogs with the exhaust from your generator; throw 3 drunk ex-cons wreaking of nicotine and lead-based face paint in a "ring" made out of milk crates and duct tape; embellish their performance with mind-boggling sound effects from a $9 Casio keyboard and - viola! - you got yourself a circus right there!

So, we rolled up about 10 minutes prior to showtime, entered the lavish entertainment compound and proceeded to sweat our asses off.  I successfully circumvented the gauntlet of popcorn, snowcone, corn dog, and fancy-lighted, novelty sword vendors near the entrance only to find they had apparently affixed a GPS system to my person so that every roaming vendor in the place could easily find us again once the show started.  I guess there was some unwritten "$40 minimum" thing going on because those fuckers didn't move until they had successfully relieved me of two Jacksons.  Circus freaks can be quite intimidating when they want to.

My daughter, initially thrilled at the prospects of clowns and elephants, soon realized that neither were a reality at this circus.  Yeah, they had the 3 drunk guys I mentioned earlier (Boozos, I like to call them), but, they weren't dressed as clowns and weren't climbing out of little miniature cars throwing pies in each other's faces.  Throwing punches seems a little more accurate.  If it weren't for the musical stylings of the sound man on his thrift store keyboard, I would have sworn I was sitting in someone's backyard in East L.A. watching them throw down Fight Club style.  Send in the fucking clowns, why don't ya? There were no elephants or lions either - only a Chihuahua in a pig outfit whose gimmick was a tube hidden in the costume that allowed him to "pee" on the guy trying to coax him back in to the oven.  (I'm not even going to explain that one).

She lasted about 15 minutes before telling me verbatim, "Boring, Daddy.  Want to go home."  I refused at first since I had a $20 snowcone to finish off, but, after growing tired of her paying attention to everyone and everything other than what we had paid to see in the interim, we dashed out at the intermission and made it home in time for the second half of NFL Sunday.

I'm not saying I won't give it another go with the little lady next time a circus rolls around, but...aw hell...yes I am.  Screw it.