I wish to run away with the circus. I wish to be a part of real fun, with animals and acrobats and fattening foods made in unsanitary conditions. I loathe this place where the sickly-sweet smell of beer washes up your nose in a concrete molded stadium, where others all around you are having insane amounts of fun. How they can be content with such a lackluster form of entertainment, without phenomenally orchestrated music and elephants? I only see men in tight pants running in a circle, I only see people in their forties having another cigarette, I can only see the sights of the people I can not become. Where are the elephants? I need more than this provincial past time, and I feel as though a romantic circus could provide me with such a thing. I would be an elephant rider, donned in a sparkly gown and a genuine smile! Not like the regular dancers or the tightrope walkers, whose smiles are fake and need the be scraped off after the show is over, no, I would not even have to think about smiling, I’d be doing it all along! My elephant and I would perform shows across the country, nay, the world. We would have our own theme music and crowds of millions would wait hours to see us, who cares about the fire breathers? Tight rope walking isn’t very dangerous when you have a net underneath you, and honestly I could see a lion at the zoo. My sister counts as a snake charmer, and it seems as though baton acts are a dime a dozen these days. No, it’s all about the girl and her elephant, I have heard the elephant can balance on a ball and stand on one foot! With the girl on her back the whole time! No, seriously! She can make her elephant do anything with the tap of her foot, or a whisper in her ear, and that elephant does things even your dog couldn’t manage. We’d be in newspapers across the country, interviewed by Oprah thirty times over, and the stars of the front page…. Then again, perhaps it is an unrealistic dream, as circuses are often hazardous and going out of style as of late, but still one I’ll cling to. Maybe it will be me back at the stadium in my forties, downing a pitcher of beer and screaming for my home team, forgetting entirely about the elephant that I so longed for on this day. But I rather like to fantasize that in my forties I will be able to gaze upon my mantle and see pictures of me any me elephant, this dream I wanted so much, this dream, like all of my other dreams, that I saddled up and conquered.