Charlie Sykes, American political commentator
Take your pick of clown:
Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt. Charlie Sykes photo credit: MSNBC. com; Trump image credit: Leonardo.Ai; Musk photo credit: Elon Musk via X (Twitter).
I wouldn’t exactly claim to be the class clown in high school, but I had a good sense of humor and always enjoyed clowning around, cracking jokes, mimicking teachers, and pulling pranks. Making people laugh, hopefully with me and not at me, made me feel good about myself.
After I graduated and headed off to college, I tried to leverage my sense of humor as much as possible, although there was a lot less tolerance for clowning around in class than there was in high school.
However, once I graduated from college, I realized that, while my knack for making people laugh helped me in making a lot of friends, I needed to leverage other talents and be taken seriously at work if I wanted to get ahead and be recognized for more than just my “comedic antics.”
To this day, I still like to put a smile on people’s faces, and I appreciate it when I get comments on my posts telling me that what I wrote made someone laugh or did, in fact, put a smile on their face.
And I still get a chance to clown around with my young grandkids. Watching their expressions of joy and hearing their laughter fills up my heart.
Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Linda has given us the word “clown.”
“Um, don’t you think it’s a bit excessive?” Harold asked his wife. “Pearl earrings, sparkly glitter on your skin, the bright red lipstick, the very heavy rouge on your cheeks, that blue green eyeshadow, and those fake eyelashes. What on earth prompted you to put on such heavy makeup that way?”
“Oh stop, Harold,” Elaine said. “Tonight is your new boss’ Christmas party. It’s going to be a joyous occasion and I want to make a good impression.”
“You’ll certainly make an impression, Elaine,” Harold said. “It’s over the top. You look like a freaking clown. And if you don’t stop drinking those martinis one after the other, you’ll be giving off fumes like an old gin mill.”
Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (pearl), Your Daily Word Prompt (glitter), The Daily Spur (prompt), MMA Storytime (joyous), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (fumes).
“What difference does it make, anyway?” Tina asked. “I don’t need your approval nor anyone else’s, for that matter. I don’t live my life to please you or at your behest.”
“It’s just that you’ve been acting so despondent lately, my dear,” Alec said. “I thought putting on some face paint and dressing up for the annual Harvest Festival dance tonight might lighten your spirits a bit. And it’s for a good, benevolent cause, too.”
“I don’t know,” Tina said. “I look ridiculous.”
“Actually, you look quite fetching, Tina,” Alec said. He turned off the overhead light, grabbed a handheld black light, turned it on, and aimed it toward her face. “Here, look at yourself in the mirror, my dear. See how glamorous you look with all of the glow paint and glitter.”
“This is too much,” Tina said. “The way you painted my face, I don’t know if I look more like a clown or some sort of malevolent spirit.” With that, Tina stood up, went into the bathroom, and washed the makeup off of her face.
Written for this week’s What Do You See? prompt from Sadje. Photo credit: Lucas Pezeta at Pexels. Also for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (difference), Jibber Jabber (approval), Your Daily Word Prompt (behest), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (despondent), Ragtag Daily Prompt (harvest), and Word of the Day Challenge (benevolent).
I always thought that guy was a bit of a clown, but when he showed up in that stupid clown suit it just proved that he’s just a bad joke.
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Written for this week’s Twittering Tales prompt from Kat Myrman.
This, That, and the Other 