The Circus Train

Ponzi is taking the train into the city to see Dave Matthews tonight.

I'm very nervous.

You see, neither of my younger daughters has been to a concert in the last six months . . . . ever since . . . ever since. . . well, ever since the day the circus came to town.

Let me just state for the record that I don't like circuses.


And I don't like trains.


And I really, really, really. . . don't like circus trains!


And, because it's finally the end of a long, dry lenten season, let me just present to you a hypothetical scenario. . .

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Let's just say that the circus was in town . . . and your two teenage sons really want to go to this particular circus because a certain clown whose name was - oh, I don't know . . . eynaK East - would be performing there.

So you buy them each a ticket.

Now they, along with the other teenagers from your town, decide to take the train to the circus. And despite your repeated warnings not to eat any candy at the circus (for, in this hypothetical scenario, you must be at least 21 to purchase or consume candy) someone offers them some candy they had lifted from their parents' candy cabinet at home and disguised as some innocuous-colored health food. So on this circus train, your sons start eating that candy like two kids in a candy store - swedish fish, gummi bears, bubblegum, twizzlers, and smarties - until they were Absolut-ly full!

Of course, you're still not sure why your sons over-indulged. You'd like to believe that it's because, heretofore, they had always obeyed your instructions to not partake of candy until they were 21. But it's more likely that those silly teenage boys ate all those sweets on a empty stomach because they were too busy doing their hair, applying their make-up, and picking their outfits to eat the gourmet frozen pizza that you prepared for them.

Now, upon entering the circus, some savvy EMS worker notices that one son is quite ill from eating all of that candy. He worries that your son's blood sugar level might be too high, and so he proceeds to escort your son via ambulance to the nearest emergency room for observation.

After the EMS worker calls you at home in your sleepy bedroom community to inform you that you must come to the big city to retrieve the sugar-laden son (and, no, he doesn't care that your husband is away on a business trip and you never drive into the city yourself - and, no again, he cannot put him on another circus train home) he returns to check out the rest of the circus acts.

And when he returns to Madison Square Garden, who do you think this very same EMS worker would chance to encounter upon his return? You guessed it! Your younger son - who also very clearly imbibed in too much candy. (People, let me tell you, I couldn't make this hypothetical stuff up if I tried. . . ) So off he goes in another ambulance while calling a frantic you who is already on her way into the city with the only teenage son still standing and screaming, Just make sure you bring him to the same emergency room!

Now, if you had had the pleasure of enduring that hypothetical evening (which ended in the ultimate walk of shame when one son was forced to slink to your 1999 minivan in his hospital-issued Johnnie gown) and returned home at 2:00 a.m. needing a little candy-fix yourself. . . don't you think that, months later when the various medical bills start arriving, your daughters (whoops - sons!) would be tripping over each other to hand over the money to pay them?????

I don't understand it.

Why should it be like pulling teeth to get these children to pay their debt to society for their ill-planned, ill-conceived, ill-timed, and ill-fated - well - illnesses??? For after all . . . if they want to eat the candy, don't you think they should be prepared to pay the dentist?

I do. . . (and at the risk of repeating one damn funny pun. . . I'll add. . . ) I Absolut-ly do!!!!

And a little p.s. on why Ponzi is so aptly named. . . I shelled out a total of $210 for three concert tickets for tonight. And as the great phychic and voodoo priestess (that would be me. . .) predicted, I have yet to see any of it back. . . well, she did hand over $45 as she was preparing to leave. . . only after I had given her an additional $40 for the train fare. . . .