"I work for the Circus, what do YOU think"?

My sister was in rare form on this particular evening. After a long day, she was able to muster up enough nice-ness, to ask, "how are you, this evening". The ticket man's reply, was short. "What do you think, I work for the Circus"? His fingers, where nubs and black with soot. He took my thirty dollars in exchange for a small, black, mark, on my hand. All I could think was this doesn't seem like a fair trade my 30 dollars for one small black mark on my hand.....and it had touched everyone, that had been to the circus so far. I have never been to the circus, so I had nothing to base this experience on. Something told me in the back of my head that this is not how it was supposed to be. There where jugglers...who couldn't juggle too many items because of the low ceiling...a guy who could handstand on two chairs, but because of the low ceilings, he was unable to stack all four. There where people dressed in Madagascar costumes. Costumes so tattered, they looked like something a homeless person would wear, to keep warm at night. The Zebra had it's ass ripped completely open and had a large red stain on its head where it had looked, as though someone had capped it a long time ago. There where creepy, clowns with whistles. One tried to molest a coworkers husband, of mine. Then he had the nerve to poke fun at me for not clapping loud enough. I hear every circus, is known for their circus music, but their system had a short in the wiring and would cut out every 5 seconds or so. There was a guy who rode his 7 foot tall unicycle and crashed it in front of my middle son (all part or the act). Now my middle son is traumatized for life because he thinks a fall like that would kill a man. He spent the rest of the night arguing with his four year old brother, about how he hoped he was okay, all while his little brother kept telling him he faked it. The evening was finished off with pictures with Sponge Bob Square Pants and 20 fully, unedited versions of his theme song. Luckily for us they had fixed their sound system by then. So it was WHO....lives in a pineapple under the sea...? Let me just take a stab at it....Sponge Bob? I know this now, because I have been unable to get that damn song out of my head. So if you ask me now, "how did I like the show"? I'd have to say, "I was just in aw, of how many crappy, acts you can jam into three and a half hours.....and how much my kids, truly loved it".