The Smallest Show on Earth

July 29, 2000

Today we Atkins' found ourselves at the circus. Yes, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's spectacular GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

I'm here to tell you: not so much.

I used to have fond memories of the circus. I remember being a little girl and me and my sisters getting all dressed up in matching outfits and going into the city to Madison Square Garden and seeing the circus.

Before the circus we'd go and see all the animals. One year an elephant ate sister #1's corsage (yes, we got all dressed up and had cute little carnation corsages for the occasion). The next year #1's peanuts were unceremoniously taken from her hand by an unfriendly pachyderm. My sister has elephant issues to this day.

After we saw the animals we'd go into this absolutely enormous arena. We had those little flashlights that opened at the top that came on strings. All the kids had them. You swung them in circles. You could see them all over the Garden.

It was thrilling. It was very very exciting--spectacular even. But most of all it was big. Bigger than life.

In my mind's eye that's how I see the circus: big. Beautiful women in sequined costumes doing high wire acts. Clowns, sometimes scary, but always silly. Big animals. Gunther Gable in center ring with his lions. Huge lions. They'd roar and spit at him. The elephants. They paraded around all three rings. I'm sure they did ridiculous tricks but I have no memory of that.

Then something happened. I grew up. I didn't like circuses anymore. I have animal's rights issues. The circus is not the place to go for an animal activist.

Then something else happened. I became a mother. Was it really as bad as all that? I know what a thrill it was for me as a child. My daughter should have that same thrill.

Once again, I compromised my values for the bigger picture and off we went, to Anaheim, to the Pond, to see the circus.

The Pond is a nice venue. It's in clean, white, Republican, Christian, Orange County, California. Frankly, I wasn't even sure they'd let me in. The Pond is owned by Disney. It's the home of the Mighty Ducks. Oy. It was getting worse by the minute. I felt more and more miserable about myself as the minutes ticked by.

Parking was a snap. I'll give them that. Expensive ($8.00, thankyewverymuch) but very manageable. With our parking ticket we got some sort of circus propaganda about how well they treat the animals and that animals doing tricks is educational. Bullshit.

Then we had to walk past the animal right's protesters as we entered the Pond. OK, I felt really shitty about myself right about then. That explained the aforementioned propaganda.

There were some concession stands outside. I looked for those flashlights on a string. There were none. I bought a program instead: $10.00. Ouch.

We went in.

To compensate for the drama at the car because we told Zoe to leave the stuffed seal my father got her this morning, in the car, she chose a stuffed white tiger with a baby to join her for the festivities. $18.00. Ouch again.

While Chuck was in the restroom we absolutely had to get the clown cup rainbow Sno-Cone. $6.00 (the cheapest of the three varieties sold). Oy.

We found our seats. They were excellent seats. They better be at $35.00 each. Middle of the center ring, five rows up. $105.00.

Then Chuck and I needed a drink each. OK, so two pretzels, two sodas, and a giant box of Cracker Jacks was next. $14.25.

$161.25 and the show hasn't even started yet. And I hate myself for being there.

Let the show begin.

There was a very sparkly parade with clowns, elephants, zebras, glitter, glitz, and all the various performers. The ringmaster welcomed, "The Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children of All Ages." But it looked so small. Small and dingy. But mostly small.

The first act out nearly did me in. In the center ring, right smack in front of us were these horses, being ridden very fast around the edge of the ring with men and women doing a variety of tricks. They called it some kind of wild west extravaganza or something. Zoe didn't seem to care for it much. Me: I cried. I hated it. I felt bad for the horses. Yeah, they did their thing. They ran around in circles. But he whole time there was this jerk in the middle snapping this really long whip. It was absolutely horrible.

Then there were some clowns. The most pathetic thing about the clowns was that the kids didn't get what was going on. They were supposed to be watching TV and had bad reception and were moving the rabbit ears around to try to get a better picture. They ended up bringing the rabbit ears into the audience and wrapping them and some unsuspecting audience member in aluminum foil to improve the quality of the picture. The thing is, not one single kid in that audience probably had the remotest clue of what TV is like without either a satellite dish or at the very least 200 channels of cable choices.

There were some aerialist and some other stuff before one of the main attractions: Sara and her Amazing Cats. I'm here to tell you Sara is no Gunther Gable, and while the tigers were incredibly beautiful, all I did was feel bad for them. Tigers have no business sitting on metal stools and rolling around the floor in unison. They are wild majestic creatures that don't belong in cages, much less doing tricks.

This was followed by more clowns and people acts. This is when Zoe got bored. So she and Chuck went in search of more circus-related paraphenalia, or something. They came back just at the end of the first act, in time for the second parade, loaded down with a toy cellular phone for Zoe: $5.00, cotton candy: $6.00, and popcorn: $4.00 more freakin dollars.

In case you're wondering, we're now up over $175.00. Ugh. And we haven't been there two hours yet.

As the second part of the show was about to begin Zoe started looking sleepy. I let her curl up on my lap, but since I can't think when the last time my daughter took a nap was, much less after eating a Sno-Cone, drinking half of my Coke, and in a room full of screaming people with a band and bright lights, I didn't think it was likely she'd doze off. I figured she just needed to regroup for a second.

Well color me wrong.

About a minute, if not less, later, she was fast asleep in my arms. She slept through about 15 clowns climbing out of a Volkswagon Bug.

Then there was another horse act. I tried to wake Zoe but she was having none of it. This act included a few zebras for good measure. No one was riding these horses and they were incredibly beautiful so I wasn't completely hating myself. Until the end. At the very end they brought out this huge stallion and made it walk around on it's hind legs. I was sick to my stomach.

Then I'll let you guess what came next. Yeah, you're right. More of those freakin clowns. Have I mentioned how much I hate clowns yet?

Then the elephants came out.

During the whole first act all she kept asking was where the elephants were and now she was sleeping through them.

I tried to wake her, to no avail. I handed her off to Chcuk. She was not the least bit interested in waking.

Filled with self-loathing I suggested that if she was going to sleep through this we may as well leave.

And leave we did.

We suffered one minor casualty on the way out: we lost the cellular phone. So $5.00 later we had another one and were in the parking lot. I was looking for the animal right's people. Had I see them I mgiht have joined them passing out brochures.

Until next time...