“Ladies and gentlemen…!”

Step right up! Three rings of distractions, meaningless side shows, and overpriced concessions – all dissolving like cotton candy before your very eyes.

Welcome to the circus! All the old-time grand masters are gone. Rainbow freaks now run the show: Bearded Ladies, Angry Clowns of Color, and America Sucks Statue Topplers.

Replaced by all-new sideshow oddities:

MAGA Republicans
Blue Collar’d White Men, and of course…
Stay at Home Moms

Kids are admitted free!  ^{(*…without an accompanying adult, duh)}

Well, not free free – their parents pay, sorta. In exchange for a unlimited season pass, a circus fee must be paid by their parents, by all parents, including those who are not parents. And they must pay.

Ready for some Fun n’Games? Find your admittance pea squirreled away under a set of half-shells:

Federal Nuts
State Nuts
Property Nuts
Sales Nuts
Poor Nuts (State-run Lotteries)

No luck, huh. Wanna try for double-or-nothing? Guess where it all went. (Sorry, if you thought you actually had a chance). Carnival barkers invented the… Now you see it, now you don’t.

Losers must beg door-to-door with guilt-induced marked-up chocolate bars to cover basic supplies.

Hang onto your wallet.

For your convenience, there are tents up everywhere! But your kids must go to the neighborhood show. And they must go.

“Choice” would, at least, allow some to escape the fairgrounds and attend some other show, but nothing’d be different. Every circus is run by the same Bᴀʀɴᴜᴍ & Bᴀɪʟᴇʏ Dᴇᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ ᴏꜰ with all the same animals, acts, and clowns.

“Different” would be getting their free-entry fee back, but… good luck with that. The circus has a refund policy:

No refunds

And of course, choice would not include: To go or not to go.

The circus has your money
The circus has your kids

So, your choice is their’s. The only choice left is: Do you wanna stick your head in the lion’s mouth… or not?

Parents that don’t want their kids to grow up to be clowns, can always run off to someplace serious… or just less funny. Perhaps even religious. But they’d hafta cough-up the cost of admission themselves, in effect… paying twice: Unrebated vanishing into thin air circus penalties along with pay-for-play tuition fees.

Meanwhile… the rest of us still get our pockets pick’d for children we don’t have to attend a circus nobody wants.

The Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇsᴛ Sʜᴏᴡ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ Pᴏᴛᴏᴍᴀᴄ has already ruled that circus vouchers do not violate the 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭’𝐬 clown-clause:

Separation of church and all else

But vouchers are just smoke and mirrors. The Ringmaster pockets money with one hand, then with a wave of the other, whisks hopefuls through hoops to get a coupon good for another show. Rather than escape the circus, suckers become part of it.

One-trick ponies vote democrat.

…and the carnival is a one-party town: If some morning tent flaps opened to a chorus of crickets, every tenured acrobat and pensioned artist would still dance and prance under color’d lights in sequined tights and floppy shoes. Then curtsey to their own applause.

So, as the sun fades on an uninspiring day… nothing but memories remain, nothing of value was gained, and nothing to show for it all but some cheap souvenir to hang on the wall.

“Hope you enjoyed the show!”

…there’s one born every minute.

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The Way Outs
Kids need less classtime and more playtime, time with dad, and the Flintstones.

Get a Clue
The characters may change, but the way out is always the same. Scooby-Doo 101: To solve the mystery, solve the crime.