Free It's All Relative by Wade Rouse

again, he was wagging his finger at me. It was terrifying. And that kick-started my fear of mimes—and clowns—culminating in a tearful exit from the big top the next year when the circus came to town.
    To this day, any horror movie with clowns or circus people or white face paint still gives me nightmares, sends me running from the theater.
    In fact, I had been to see a therapist about this fear, which had once again reared its ugly white head when I was forced to interview a clown for a feature story I was writing on unusual careers for an alumni magazine.
    I hadn’t been able to sleep for weeks in dread of meeting the clown face-to-face.
    I told the therapist all of this, every last detail, down to the pooping mime, while she scribbled nonstop and nodded her head and sipped some sort of tea that I firmly believe had gin as a main ingredient. Then she looked at me and said, quite calmly, “I believe that you are a coulrophobiac.”
    â€œAm I going to die?” I asked. “Or be disfigured in any way?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “That means you are a person with an abnormal or exaggerated fear of clowns.”
    â€œOh,” I said.
    Tell me something I don’t know, I thought.
    â€œBut your questions about death and disfigurement bring up a host of other issues,” she said. “Does six P.M . next Wednesday work for you?”
    I ended up feigning illness with the clown, and interviewed him over the phone.
    I did not have to face my fear until years later, when I was set upon a blind date with a man from Sarasota whom I was told worked in PR for Ringling. This was just a couple of weeks before my birthday, at a time when I had just come out and was officially dating for the first time in my life.
    â€œYou two have a lot in common,” I was told at the time by a friend, when I still worked in public relations. “PR career, writing, entertaining, movies. It’s a slam dunk.”
    â€œIsn’t Ringling a circus?” I asked. “Don’t they have clowns and mimes?”
    â€œHe works in PR, for God’s sake, Wade,” my friend said. “Consider this my birthday present to you. Lord knows you need to get lucky. I’ll set it all up.”
    I walked into our designated meeting spot, a cute little bistro with great food, and there, waiting to greet me, was a mime.
    â€œYou must be Wade,” the mime said.
    I wanted to run, I really did, but my legs wouldn’t work.
    It’s like the time I met David Sedaris and wanted to give him a copy of my book and make him hysterical with laughter, and the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “You … funny.”
    â€œI came right from work and didn’t have a chance to change. I’m so sorry,” he said. “Oh, and happy early birthday, I’m told.”
    We were seated by a waitress who seemed unfazed by the fact that a man in white face paint and a white bodysuit had just gulped down a glass of water and left a half circle of grease paint around the rim.
    I, on the other, was about to stroke.
    In fact, I had yet to say a word and was still staring at my mime openmouthed.
    â€œA mime is just a person in makeup,” I heard my therapist say in my head. She had told me during our sessions to recite this over and over whenever I felt overwhelmed by my fear. “He is an actor.”
    I tried to picture Johnny Depp as a mime but knew he was too smart to ever take such a thankless role.
    â€œAre you okay?” the mime asked.
    â€œYou’re a … mime?” I finally asked in a squeaky voice. “I thought you were in PR.”
    â€œOh, I am. I help handle the press as the circus travels from town to town, but I also work as a mime. It’s my passion!”
    The mime’s teeth took on a yellowish hue next to his white face paint. Worse, he had that hideous acrylic stench that surfaces only when you have to dress up for Halloween or