Snack Time in Clown Alley

Over the years I’ve worked in many different environments. Whether factory, store, office, or school, there have been snacks. Sometimes lavish, sometimes spartan; sometimes free, sometimes in vending machines. In Thailand the average Bangkok office is rife with goodies that workers bring in from the street vendors. It’s all casual, with no thought for recompense. The stuff is so cheap that it would be an insult to charge for it. Black duck eggs boiled in tea and then buried in a clay jar in the ground for a month; sticky rice steamed inside fresh bamboo sections -- you can eat the whole thing; mooncakes filled with sweet red beans; chicken satay on bamboo skewers, dripping with peanut sauce; sesame seed brittle; candied cassava; and sweet fresh fruit that makes you think you’ve died and gone to heaven -- mangoes, papayas, little bananas the size of your index finger, dragon fruit, star fruit, rambutan, custard apples, and mangosteens.

Up in Minnesota I worked in factories where the ladies competed with each other to see who could bring in the heartiest casserole or coffee cake to share with coworkers. The cholesterol readings were off the charts!

Then again, I’ve worked in offices, most recently here in Provo, where the mindset when it came to snacking and sharing was definitely mingy. At one private school I worked at no one brought anything in, and the vending machines dispensed packages of saw dust. I decided to shake things up one day and brought in a basket of fruit from the supermarket; apples, oranges, bananas, pears, and even a few lemons. I also picked up a package of figs and a package of dates to scatter throughout the larger fruits. I set this in the teacher’s lounge and awaited results. The first one to notice was the school principal, who reacted as if he’d been slapped in the face with a soiled diaper.

“Who brought this in?” he demanded.

“I did” I said calmly. “Anything the matter?”

“Why, no, I guess not. Only, it might upset some of the teachers.”

I had no answer for that, so went back to work grading papers.

As the day wore on nobody touched any of the fruit. At last I spoke up and invited the staff to help themselves. Hesitantly at first, then in a frenzied rush, they attacked my fruit basket to pocket everything they could lay their hands on. They ate none of it. They just took it to eat at home later.   

That convinced me that Mormons are weird. And I’m one of ‘em!

Clown alley, of course, had its own rules and procedures for noshing during work hours.

The first item of business in each new building on set up day was for Anchorface and Chico to scope out the concession stands in the building. You’d be surprised how many of those places throw away perfectly good hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizza slices just because they are a few hours old. Anchorface and Chico were authorized on behalf of clown alley to offer concession owners ten cents on the dollar to divert items meant for the dumpster to clown alley. Of course, this broke all sorts of health ordinances, but the concession owners felt that clowns were not quite human, and so the regulations did not really apply. As long as the food was edible, we tended to agree with them.

Then there were the day old bakery stores that used to dot the land. Do they still have those fine old institutions, where you could buy a loaf of bread for a quarter and packages of Twinkies or Suzy Q’s for a nickel apiece? Honey buns were fifteen cents for a dozen. And they’d throw in a package of stale donuts for free. Swede Johnson would usually stop by such a place once a week, then share it with one and all in clown alley. He asked for nothing in return.

“What the hell” he’d comment to no one in particular, “it keeps the First of Mays from eating too much meat.”

The Circus Fans of America often hosted barbeques and picnics for clown alley in the Southern States, where their membership was strongest. They’d bring us fried fish and hush puppies or gigantic ham sandwiches that would choke a whale, but they were awful nuisances once we let them into clown alley. They liked to hunt for ‘souvenirs’, swiping half empty tins of Stein’s Clown White or a pair of gloves. We always had to have Charlie Baumann eventually ban them from the building (but not before we got fed!)

Then there were the press events. Oh boy, those were humdingers! In each town the local circus promoter would invite the media to a wondrous banquet on opening night to wine and dine them into giving the show a good review. The malnourished reporters would wolf down a dozen shrimp and guzzle Korbel until it ran out of their ears, but there was always plenty leftover at the end of their debauch. Just sitting there, waiting to be enjoyed by those bold enough to invade the banquet hall and capture it. This took split second timing. First we’d send in someone innocent looking, like me, to ask the catering staff if they had any bones for the clown alley dogs. I’d look longingly at the leftovers while most of the staff went into the kitchen to rummage for bones; the remaining staff, taking pity on my obvious longing for a few choice morsels, would encourage me to take a plateful of anything I wanted. Go ahead, kid; nobody’ll miss it.

Gee, thanks mister. Could I get a bag of some sort, maybe?

That shy request would usually send the rest of the staff back into the kitchen to look for a bag for the scrawny kid with big eyes. In a flash, after I’d given the high sign, several clowns would move in silently and sweep as much of the loot as possible into plastic duffel bags we bought for just such a contingency. Then they would waft silently out before the staff came back with my bag and bones.

Thanks a lot, guys. You’re the best! And my eyes would tear up as I left. Too many chopped green onions in that cheese ball!

It was feast or famine in clown alley. Sometimes we had rich pickings from those press banquets or from circus fans, but more often the vultures would begin circling around clown alley just before payday as our food money ran out.

One particularly arid week I was languishing for something outside of pie car chili and peanut butter sandwiches, which I’d been forced to subsist on after a particularly wild binge at a used book store.

Roofus T. Goofus brought in a luscious pan of deep dish brownies, just glistening with satin cocoa butter. I couldn’t take my eyes off of them.

“Don’t let anybody touch ‘em, Tork” he asked me. Then he gave me a wink and a nudge. “They’re Alice B. Toklas brownies, if ya know what I mean!” More winks and nudges. I nodded sagely, having no idea what he was talking about. “We’ll share ‘em out after the show tonight.”

As soon as the alley was empty for a moment I helped myself to half the pan in a spasm of uncontrollable greed. The ensuing evening remains mostly a happy blank in my memory. I’m told I was discovered floating gently on a pink cloud and had to be tethered to my clown trunk to keep from shooting through the ceiling. I seem to recall Roofus yelling at me, as if from a great distance -- but it didn’t bother me, since I immediately turned him into a humming bird, and then turned everyone else in clown alley into hummingbirds, and we all flew away to the moon . . .

The next day I had the munchies really bad. Lucky for me it was payday, so when the eagle screamed (circus slang for the handing out of paychecks) I collected mine and spent an unconscionable amount on Cheetos, Bugles, Cracker Jack, and burritos. Roofus T. Goofus stayed unaccountably mad at me for several weeks afterwards. Well, there’s no accounting for the moods of hungry clowns.