fajrdrako | Oct. 31st, 2013

Remember the little boy on the bus who looks like Jamie from Doctor Who? He was on the bus today with his father. His nose was painted with a red blob and he wore a clown costume. The woman beside me complimented him on his nose, and, at slight urging from his father, he murmured, "Merci."

"Show her you can say it in English, too," his father prompted, and he whispered, even more softly, "Thank you."

It was a third-generation clown costume, his father said. The crowning touch was the warm woolen grey toque, on top of which was a black plastic clown's hat with a neon green pom-pom.