Clown craze.

There was a time when every Christmas gift I gave was purchased at the dollar store in the Village Square Mall. Starting when I was probably six or seven, my parents would leave the three kids there for a half hour or so, just long enough for us to annoy the hell out of whatever poor bastard was earning minimum wage behind the counter. One year we bought our dad a tiny screwdriver. Pretty cute, I know.

At some point, my brother and sister and I were informed of our Aunt Eva's collection of toy clowns. So each Christmas we ventured into the breakable aisle and chose a different $1 tiny statue of a makeup-caked jokester to send her in the mail. We assumed she displayed them somewhere, next to her other clowns, I guess. She probably did. She lived a thousand miles away, so we really had no idea.

This next memory is a little foggy, but I'm relatively sure that one year, after several straight clown presents, my dad encouraged us to pick a new theme for Eva's gifts. Basically: "Stop sending her a goddamed clown every year. She used to like having a couple of clowns, sure, but now she's got a million, and she doesn't even like clowns that goddamned much, and frankly, having a huge collection of miniature clowns is a little fucking creepy. A couple was OK, but now she's getting weirded out every time she looks in the corner with all those clowns."

It wasn't exactly that, but close.

I have no idea what we got her the next year. It was undoubtedly more dull than all those baby Bozos.

I was reminded of the X-mas gifts this morning when I came upon these terrifying photos of Ronald McDonald. Even when I was a kid, Ronald slightly disturbed me. Those VERY red lips were/are too much.

Apparently that didn't enter my brain at the dollar store.