Scariest. Clown. Ever.

My buddy Matt has this little hobby. There's one of those "Everything's a Dollar" stores near his gym, and for some reason this particular bargain palace seems to specialize in weird little cast resin figures and statues. If he spots something he thinks will annoy or discomfit you, he'll drop a buck and leave a little gift on your desk. He did this to a co-worker of mine for the better part of a year, after the co-worker had been repeatedly accosted by a Christian neighbor who had decided it was her mission to "save" him. Every week or two, my buddy would arrive at his cube to find Yet Another Hideous Christ Figuring, poorly cast, the figure almost always slightly (sometimes grotesquely) disproportionate or -- more disturbingly -- with Christ's body outrageously buff and tan, looking like something off the cover of a romance novel, the facial details often painted so heavily that Mary looked as though she had stooped by to comfort him between turning tricks.

Hysterical, really.

But I made a mistake. I mentioned over lunch one day that I am absurdly disturbed by clowns. Not all clowns -- the ones in cirque du soleil (which are really more mime-ish that clown-ish) don't bother me a bit. But your basic Barnum n' Bailer dime-store paint-by-numbers art clowns give me the heebiejeebies.

Sigh. And now Matt has a new hobby.

While talking to my wife on the phone this morning, I glanced up and saw this on top of my monitor:



I literally jumped in my chair and gasped, like I got stung by a bee. It's terrifying. I mean, all of these things are hideous, but this one: WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE BIG PURPLE HAND?



The popular theory is that the clown head is actually a decoy, meant to distract you from the Big Purple Hand of the Devil.

You know somewhere, some half-blind grandma saw one of these in a store and thought it would be perfect for their little grandson. And that, Virginia, is where serial killers come from.

Mood: Seriously creeped out, man
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