The Greatest Show on Earth

Setting aside our potential philosophical issues with the whole animals-in-captivity-forced-to-be-trained-tigers-and-elephants, we took the children to the circus this week. (Aside: It's amazing the issues you have that you set aside when you have children. Like, say, seeing trained elephants or getting pooped on.) This family needs some joy, and by gar, for the low price of $24 a head, we purchased it.

So fine. The circus. We entered the hallways of the Denver Coliseum after going through security (which consisted of a woman glancing briefly into my handbag while I could've been carrying an ax under my coat, but I digress) and were immediately faced with what I can only describe as perhaps the fourth circle of Dante's hell were Dante a modern man. Food stands full of shaved ice, popcorn, and some special hand-made super smores, all with a 500% markup, at the very least. The children were in heaven, the kind of heaven where things don't cost money and are just shiny and fast and slick and beautiful. Honestly, it's the kind of heaven kids live in most of the time, isn't it?

We found our seats. We paid $16 for two waters and a box of popcorn. We sat back and waited for the floor to clear and the show to begin. And began it did, with a huge showstopping number.

The last time I went to the circus was 20 years ago, so my memory is probably foggy and I'm OK with that. . . I remember a circus being, well, a circus, with three rings and stuff going on in each. Maybe. Last night's show was so unbelieveably busy that I'm fairly certain I missed over 80% of it. At one point, as my eyes were darting from spinning lady on the left to twirling butterfly lady on the right to cannon to ringleader to evil Mr. Gravity to elephants having a seat and crossing their legs, I was moved to tears by my inability to focus on any one thing. I was prepared for the circus to be active and busy - it's a show - nay, the "Greatest Show on earth", but it's also an exercise in exhausting overstimulation by the audience. Midway through the show, I glanced at both children and the wonder and awe in their faces was worth the whole experience, though I balk at the whole buying wonder and awe for $24 a head thing.

Not, of course, for the individual ticket price, but for the lesson it inadvertently teaches my children. Every moment, every breath, every step into that coliseum was an exercise in consumerism. Buy the Greatest Show on Earth and then buy your food and then buy the spinning light up things and then buy a coloring book. My kids both cried for the spinny flashing light things and were denied. They got the show, popcorn, water, and smores. That was all we were willing to buy into for the day. And I have to say, perhaps the best moment of the Greatest Show on Earth was Lilly's response at being told she couldn't have a coloring book: "That's ok," she said. "I'll just go home and draw pictures of all of the things we saw.

That, my friends, made it all worthwhile. Until we got home with two oversugared, overstimulated, overtired children.