Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

A very long time ago in a small town very far away I was working as a paralegal in a small real estate company. Unfortunately the salary wasn’t quite enough to allow me to live on my own. So, in order to be able to rent an apartment and live alone, I took on a few supplemental jobs. I believe the young people today call them side hustles. I might not have used that term then, but oh boy, did I have to hustle to get through every day of my life.

One of my supplemental jobs was apartment manager for the small complex I lived in. In exchange for managing the 20 townhouses in the development, I got a good discount on the rent on my own apartment, which made it possible for me to live there. It was a lot harder than it sounds.

Every day when I arrived home from my paralegal job, tenants would be watching for me through their windows, and before I had even turned my engine off, they were coming to meet me at my car with their complaints, appliances that didn’t work, hot water not hot enough, noise from the train running on the tracks right behind the apartments, and so many more.

Some of these issues I could fix, but some I just had no control over. I could hit the nearly hidden reset button on the bottom of the garbage disposal and voila, it would come roaring back on. I could adjust the hot water valve to increase the temperature on their hot water heater. But seriously, there was absolutely nothing I could do about the train noise. I mean, they clearly could see the train tracks when they toured the apartment as it was visible from their glass sliding door from the living room onto their little enclosed patio.

Unfortunately, the contribution to my overall income for dealing with all of these landlord/tenant issues still wasn’t quite enough. A good friend came to the rescue. He owned a greeting card shop in the small town I lived in. He also made helium balloon bouquets for special occasions.

One day I stopped by to buy a birthday card and he was making a balloon bouquet. We chatted for a while and he mentioned that his delivery person had quit. But this guy didn’t just deliver balloons, he also did children’s birthday parties in full clown regalia.

My friend asked if I knew anyone from the theatre group I belonged to who might be interested in picking up some extra money on the weekends as his in-house clown. Hmmm, I thought, how bad could it be? I signed up on the spot.

So, for several years, I was a paralegal by day, an apartment manager by night, and a clown by weekend. My friend paid me well for each party I covered and he supplied me with the entire clown get-up, including multi-striped clown suit, red nose, multi-colored wig, clown makeup, and things I could use to entertain the children at their parties.

I was very good at this, and I was well-rewarded with sizable tips by the parents hosting the parties. Very large tips, a piece of birthday cake for the road, and lots of contacts for future gigs. I delivered the balloons, cut and served the cake, played endless rounds of Duck, Duck, Goose, and painted the faces of hundreds of kids.

It was exhausting though. When I got home after each party, I would lay on my bed with my ceiling fan on full blast while still in full clown costume, just to recuperate from the three hours I had entertained children!

Eventually my friend’s business closed and he allowed me to keep all my clown gear. By that time, my income had caught up with my budget so Giggles the Clown retired.

Until I moved to the DC area and became good friends with one of the paralegals I worked with, the mom of a four-year-old boy who stole my heart. She was telling me about his upcoming birthday party and invited me to attend. For some odd reason, I told her I had been a clown back home and she asked if I would consider doing it for her son’s party.

A few weeks later I loaded up my car with a huge balloon bouquet, all but blocking my rear view mirror, and took off for her house. I had not been in the area long and soon I was hopelessly lost. I was creeping along a side street looking for any clue as to which direction I should go to find her house when I heard a blast of a police siren. I peeked between the balloons to see that a police car was behind me gesturing for me to pull over. Which I did.

The police officer walked over to my car and froze in his steps when he saw Giggles the Clown smiling up at him. He asked for my driver’s license and asked if I had been drinking. Apparently I had been swerving around as I searched for my friend’s house. He thought I was a drunk clown!

He asked me to get out of the car and watched me climb out with my mismatched socks and mismatched hi-top Converse sneakers (one red sock and yellow sneaker on left foot, yellow sock and red sneaker on right foot). He just shook his head.

I explained my circumstances, and he said he should write me a ticket for a moving vehicle violation but he let me go with a warning, not only about the swerving but the balloons blocking my rear view mirror. As he walked back to his car, he was still shaking his head.

I’ve only suited up as Giggles a few other times, just for trick or treating with my daughters at Halloween. Giggles has long been retired, and my clowning days are over, but this story – and this photo – will always make me smile!