Disciplining Children Is Hard, But Please Do Not Hire a Clown to Terrify Your Kids Into Behaving
We’re all going to make mistakes as parents, and some of those mistakes are going to haunt us for the rest of our lives. But one mistake we can all avoid making is the mistake where we hire a man in a terrifying clown costume to come and scare our children on purpose.
Other parents, however, are totally fine with that particular mistake, which is probably bad for their kids but good for Florida resident Wrinkles the Clown, because he’s getting work out of it.
According to SheKnows, Wrinkles the Clown is a retired 65-year-old military veteran who is actually a very nice guy who happens to own a really creepy clown costume. He told the Washington Post that he relocated from Rhode Island to Florida to retire, but when he looked around at other retirees, he saw that they were doing things like playing golf and shuffleboard and hanging out at country clubs. He decided he also needed a hobby, so instead of doing one of those normal “retired guy” things, he decided to buy a clown costume and just start wandering Florida, scaring the crap out of people.
Lots of people are amateur clowns, but Wrinkles is not exactly bright and whimsical. Wrinkles is terrifying, with a morose white face and cavernous black holes for eyes and an ill-fitting red and white polka dot onesie. I’m not normally afraid of clowns, but Wrinkles definitely bought his outfit from the Murder Clown section of the party store.
#WrinklesTheClown: internet sensation for scaring the pants off people. That accent, tho. https://t.co/59NTYAeXQ5 pic.twitter.com/1cfOitaI4R
”” Derek Deis (@DerekKXLY) November 2, 2015
Lots of clowns are hired for children’s parties and other events, and Wrinkles is available for that kind of stuff, though it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing one would want a scary clown for. While Wrinkles wanders Florida, scaring people for his own enjoyment, he’s also available for hire. Sometimes people hire him to prank their friends, which does seem like a pretty funny use of a murder clown, provided one’s friends are adults with a good sense of humor and a love of prankery.
At least one parent, however, has hired Wrinkles to scare the crap out of her misbehaving 12-year-old, and that’s just not right.
Wrinkles said that a mother called him up and said that her son was misbehaving a lot, and because she knew he was afraid of clowns, she decided to hire Wrinkles to get back at her kid for not listening to her.
So one day Wrinkles showed up across the street from the bus stop where the boy was hanging out with his friends, just being all menacing and horrifying.
Wrinkles says the panicked 12-year-old actually burst into terrified tears in front of his friends and went running home. But rather than feeling guilty, the mom called Wrinkles to thank him. Now whenever her son misbehaves, she just gives him a stern look and says, “Do you want Wrinkles to come back?”
That just sounds really mean and awful to me, and like a terrible way to teach a kid to behave. It’s definitely not something to do if you ever want your kid to grow out of his clown phobia.
