I could resist posting this. There is a website where you can register yourself as a clown with the National Clown and Character Registry. For $18.95 plus $2.00 S&H, you send in two pictures of yourself (painted as a clown of course), and in return you get an official ID card with your real name and clown name. The real perk, of course, is that now your face is a registered trademark that cannot be copied by other clowns. I am not kidding. And that's not all. For archival purposes the Registry paints a replica of every face on a goose egg. Does that mean that somewhere out there, there is a vault of thousands of goose eggs with clown faces painted on them? How are they organized? If, as a clown, I reported someone using my trademarked face without permission, how would they verify this?

Registry Official: "Well, they are similar, but we can see from trademark egg 5872b that your face has green circles around the eyes while the clown in question clearly has red circles around his eyes."

And why the ID card?

Police Officer: "I'm sorry sir, I'm going to have to book you for two counts of spraying seltzer water from a flower without a license."

You can even have the National Clown and Character Registry visit your group, convention, or (I am not making this up) alley. All of this is possible by contacting Tom E. Boy, who is a member of Clowns of America International, World Clown Association, Mid-Atlantic Clown Association and the Kanawha Klowns, as well as (I am still not making this up) the Charleston, West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. He is an alumnus of the Northeast Tennessee Clown College, as well as a number of clown post-graduate programs that are listed on his webpage.

This is why I love the internet.