Clowns are Nature's Terrorists

I'm in the middle of a crazy week, but wanted to relate the following:

Sunday I happened into a street fair on 7th avenue, one long block from home. There were stalls with vendors and food. And clowns. One very nervous little girl's parents brought her up to a booth where some clowns were standing around. "Come on, honey! Clowns!" said the parents, dragging their child. One clown approached the family. "And who's this special shy girl?" he asked, in a voice that, for some reason, made me instinctively put my hand on the knife in my pocket. "Don't worry," the clown assured the parents, "kids just LOVE clowns. Hey, Bill!"
Bill was a much larger clown, fully made up, who responded to the call to action. He smiled at the little girl, towering over her, and then began to - and I am not making this up - dance around her, cackling. It was like watching some sort of horrible voodoo ritual: the girl held helpless by her smiling parents. Finally, she had had enough, and erupted in screams and tears. That was enough to drive the foul painted monster away, but the girl kept screaming and crying until her parents took her from the clowns' booth and bought her ice cream.