...a blue sedan pulled into the driveway. Larry Hawkins, Martha's husband and Tom and Joyce's father, had just come home.
He was in his early forties, just under six feet tall with a barrel chest that had just started to thicken. He'd had blonde hair when he was young but as he neared twenty-five he'd noticed his hairline receding and figuring since he'd lose it anyway had shaved his head ever since.
Larry had a big surprise for his children-after five years of smart investing and careful saving they finally had enough money in the bank that he could retire from his job as a stockbroker and spend nearly all his time with his family. Martha had known of course, but they both wanted surprise Tom and Joyce.
It was Larry who was surprised, however, when he pressed the button of the garage door opener and saw instead of his wife's VW was a tiny little car that looked like it could barely hold a couple of toddlers.
He got an even bigger shock when he stepped inside his house. The interior was colored like a circus tent with strange scents of cotton candy, bubblegum, and popcorn floating through the air.
And his biggest surprise came when he entered the living room. The wallpaper, ceiling, furniture, and carpeting were all decked out in an explosion of multicolored hues and the stereo was playing what sounded like calliope music.
"Larry! You're home!" Larry thought nothing could startle him more, but he was wrong. Standing right in front of him was his wife Martha, all dressed up and made up as a clown. She walked up and landed a big kiss on his shocked face. "Today has been such an interesting day!"
Finally Larry regained some composure. "Martha, what have you done to the house? And why are you dressed like this?"
His wife giggled. "It's a long story."
"It certainly is, Daddy." Larry looking to his left saw what looked like a clowned up version of a southern belle sashay into the room with a chubby bald little boy clown waddling beside her. And somehow he recognized them as his children, although his son looked even plumper than before.
After taking a deep breath, Larry finally said, "Alright, how did you manage to do THIS," he waved his hand to indicate the changes to the living room, "while I was at the office? And why are the three of you dressed up as clowns?"
His wife simply giggled. "Oh dear, we aren't just dressed up as clowns."
Joyce flittered her long eyelashes. "That's right Daddy," she said in an exaggerated southern drawl. "Now we'uns ARE clowns. We ain't werin' makeup a'tall."
Larry licked his hand and rubbed against his daughter's face. Nothing came off. Martha took off one of her shoes and socks to show her ridiculously long foot. Larry tried pulling at each of their round red noses; they stayed firmly in place with a loud HONK sounding from each. He took off the little derby Tom was wearing and rubbed his scalp; his son was truly bald on top.
Finally, he said wearily, "How did this happen?"
Tom had been quiet the whole time, finally he spoke in a comically sad voice, "I'm afraid it's my fault Dad."
"What do you mean?"
Tom looked down at his big feet; Larry had seen him do that before. It usually meant his son was apologizing for something he wasn't completely sorry for.
Tom told his father how Martha had taken him to the left him outside the store at the mall were he found the Trans-Booth, and about how he went inside.
"It turned me into a clown," Tom continued, "and then Mom found me and as we walked to the car, she changed, and so did the car. Then we got home and Joyce had changed, along with the house," and now his voice went from sad to mischievous.
"-and now so have you!" Tom laughed as he poked his father in the nose. HONK!
Larry blinked in surprise, then suddenly noticed a touch of red nestling right between his eyes. "What the-?" he reached to touch his nose, only to find he was wearing white gloves.
Larry gasped as he looked down at the rest of his body. His black business suit had faded to a powder blue, his red tie had tripled in width and was now rainbow colored, and his waistline had expanded out to the size of a small hula hoop. Looking over his beer belly Larry could see on his feet two enormously long and wide-wide blue and yellow clown shoes.
Joyce pointed to the mirror over the living room couch. "Have ah look at tha new you, Daddy."
Larry waddled to the mirror; he could tell by feel that his feet had grown to fit the canoe=paddle sized shoes he wore. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and looked at the clown reflecting back at him.
Like his wife and children Larry was now an auguste clown with white patches around his eyes stretching to his forehead and a white muzzle over his mouth and a dark pink complexion. His eye patterns had vertical blue-black bars inside and were topped by black arches that gave him a surprised look. His cheeks seemed blushed a soft red and inside his muzzle Larry's lips were dark black and stretched into a smile that made it look like his mouth was open. At the very center of Larry's face, like a Christmas tree ornament, was a big red clown nose.
On the very top of Larry's head was tiny derby like the one Tom wore only blue with a pink band. And while the side of his head had been shaved now his bald spot was surrounded a thick curly mass hair in the same 'half-fro' style as Tom's but the same neon blonde color as Joyce's hair. In short, he had become an older, somewhat different colored version of his son.
After seeing his reflection, Larry touched his nose and gave it a squeeze. "HONK!" it sounded like the others only a tad deeper. "When did I start changing?" he finally asked, his voicing sounding somewhat like the cartoon moose Bullwinkle.
"When y'all walked into the livin' room," Joyce said.
Martha giggled. "Your nose was already red and swelling up, and as you were talking the rest happened."
"Yeah," Tom chuckled. "It was finished just before I poked you. We just decided not to tell you for, well, for the fun of it!"
The entire family of clowns, Larry included, burst into laughter. "I never felt better in my life," he finally said. "Now I've got a surprise for you kids."
He told his children about how he had retired, and wouldn't have to go back to work again. "We; ah must say, tha timin' couldn' be betta," Joyce said in her funny southern drawl.
"Yeah," Tom agreed. "Imagine going to the office looking like that!"
They laughed again, then finally Larry looked serious-well, as serious as a clown could look anyway. "You two still have to go to school, of course. But let's talk about it later. Now, let's have supper!