My Brother, The Elephant Man

You know, there are no real celebrities in our family, so any moment in the limelight is a pretty big deal. But come on, the circus????? Tim was going to be in the circus!?!?!?! We all decided this was worthy of our attendance. Mom and Dad came down. We brought Grant with us. Everyone was on hand.

So at dinner before the circus, Tim was clearly nervous. We asked if he was nervous because the whole town was on hand to watch or because he was about to ride an elephant. His response: I'm nervous because I'm replaying every single episode of "When Animals Attack" in my head right now. (Yeah, I had to admit I was worried that we might be assembling the entire family to watch my brother helplessly strapped to a rampaging elephant...)

So we get there, and we are all expecting pretty much exactly what we see. A single circus tent in an empty lot. A small fairway. We go in and Nora gets her face painted. She's thrilled.... and then I notice that the man painting her face is wearing a robe that says, "The Flying Fernandez" under which I notice are tights. The trapeze guy face paints! Pretty cool.

We sit down and immediately you notice two cages holding two tigers each. Hmmmm. They are inside a cage that surrounds the ring. Dave and Mom and I are eyeballing this cage set-up. Me: "Dave, do you think that cage would actually hold in a tiger if it wanted out?" Dave: "Absolutely not." Great. Mom agrees. So I spend the next fifteen minutes planning escape routes. Dave is instructed to grab two kids. I'll grab one. But, he's arguing that he's staying put while the mayhem breaks out because he's sure the tigers will go for moving targets instead. Yeah.... but eventually all the moving targets will no longer be moving.... and then he'd be a sitting duck. Alek this whole time repeats over and over, "What are you guys talking about? Why do we have to escape? What are you guys talking about?" Excellent parenting skills.

So then the actual tiger act starts. Ummmmm.... they looked drugged..... but... ummmm... they were NOT happy tigers. Ears back, hissing, growling. Yeah.... it was quite an act. And I can honestly say that I have never been so relieved as when it ended.

The rest of the show was surprisingly awesome. I will never go to a huge three ring circus in the Astrodome again. This is where it's at, folks. Hula-hooping, dogs, cool trapeze family, whip drumming, twin Brazillian brothers juggling, this cool balancing guy, some pretty good clowns, a horse-riding act in which a "member of the audience" lost her pants, and of course cotton candy, cracker jacks, pop corn, caramel apples, and soda pop. COME ON - when have you ever had a better time that that??!?! It was terrific. Walter and the rest of the kids watched every second. Tim was set for intermission, and before the circus started, Dave and I agreed we'd leave after that - it's a long drive home. But about half way through the first half, we agreed we weren't going anywhere.

But then it was time. The Dog Act. Tim's cue. Off he went to be put upon an elephant. Intermission was next. They announced a member of the community was the honorary ring master, and the lights dimmed.... AND TIM RODE OUT ON AN ELEPHANT!!!!!! WE CHEERED!!!! HE WAVED AT THE CROWD!!! WE WAITED FOR HIM TO HEAD ACROSS THE RING AND AROUND THE TENT. And they led him to the right 40 feet........and that was that. Wow. Alas. But hey - TIM RODE AN ELEPHANT IN THE CIRCUS! How many of you can say that???????? We loved it. And there was no rampaging. Not one little bit.