Some years ago, a couple I was friends with pressured me to be a clown at the birthday party they were throwing for their little daughter. I firmly and repeatedly noped out on that, and they hired a professional clown, and later they said they were glad because the pro did a great job.

They told me they asked the clown what was the weirdest event he ever performed at. The clown replied that it was an adult party. The clown explained that doing an adult party was no big deal—he often did adult parties and mixed up the usual clown stuff with some dirty jokes and it was fine.

But this party of adults insisted on getting the children’s show, not the adult show, and when the clown arrived, he found a gathering of grown men and women dressed as children, the men wearing rompers and the women wearing jumper-dresses, and they stayed in character the whole time.

That was more than 30 years ago, and since then, every few months I think of that conversation and wonder WTF?