Are you following where I was?

See, Ian is from a town outside of Chicago and has been staying at home while we play here. He invited me to come see his home last night, and considering I don’t exactly love my apartment here as well as the fact that I do love Ian, the decision was really quite simple.

Which is how I found myself in a wonderfully soft bed, able to sleep well despite the fact that I accidentally pulled off the chain to the ceiling fan in an effort to turn it on, successfully dooming myself to a night of complete and utter silence.

In case you didn’t know, I am rather addicted to the sound of a fan. Most of us in my family are. I have a small one I travel with on tour (a fan that is, not a family) and it sings me to sleep every night (but how funny would it be if a small family sang me to sleep every night?!?!). But I didn’t bring it to Ian’s house, which is why I so enthusiastically tugged on the ceiling fan chain and yadda yadda yadda you know the rest.

Now, Ian told me a most creepy and true story that continues to give us the heebie jeebies but does not keep us from complimenting each other’s life size clown whenever we enter a new room.

Yeah, let me explain.

Apparently Ian’s fiance works with a young woman who babysits for a wealthy family in the Upper West Side. They have this large and gorgeous house with different levels and one night, after putting her charges to bed, the babysitter decides to explore the downstairs a little. To her delight, she sees it has been set up as an absolute dream for children. It has a carnival feel to it, bright colors, many toys, a small indoor ferris wheel, and even a life size clown in the corner for good measure.

After going back upstairs, the babysitter receives a call from the kids’ mother, checking in. Reassuring her that her kids are sleeping soundly, the sitter tells her how lovely the play room is.

Yes, the kids adore it, the mother agrees.

The carnival theme is so fantastic! the babysitter continues, And the life size clown is a great touch, too!

The what? the mother asks?

The life size clown, the babysitter repeats, that you have downstairs in the corner of the room…

The mother’s tone gets very serious as she says, Get the kids and get out of there now because we don’t have a life size clown!

Thankfully, the babysitter got out with the kids and called the police who then went into the home and, finding the intruder dressed as a clown and hiding in the house, arrested him.

Um, how creepy is that?!?!

I honestly don’t like clowns anyway, but thinking of that story makes my skin crawl just a little. Okay, a lot.

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