Make 'Em Laugh: My Reign as the Clown Prince

"No! I don't want your apricot fruitcake! Not even a little piece!!!" I slammed the door in our new neighbor's face, resisting the impulse to give both of them (as in, the door, and Doris Blueberry, Gotham's most obnoxious octogenarian - or at least in my eyes) a squirt with my special Joker flower.

It was so difficult being me.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaarleyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I bellowed, using my full lung capacity, running into the living room, only pausing to pick up the subject of my rant.

"What is this, Harley? Really? The guys would hassle me a lot less if you'd of just gone out and shot them in the head like I recommended!"

She was watching The Mentalist (love that Red John - such panache), and was so engrossed that I actually had to take a brick from the basket under the coffee table and threaten to throw it through the TV to get her to turn it off and listen up like a good woman (so I was learning a few things from Hush.) She leapt up from the couch - the new couch, thanks to a few bombs and the five-finger discount - ran around the table, and hugged me, like my body was hers to touch! Couldn't the girl take a hint? Harleen Quinzel - rebirthed (and much better off for it, too) as Harley Quinn - is my key flunky. I can never get rid of her because, basically, she thinks she's my girlfriend.  It's annoying, but at least I have someone I can always depend on to wash my socks, make me breakfast (two fried eggs and a long slice of bacon to make a smiley face; it just inspires me to get out and seize the day - or a Gotham cop - by the throat), and, most importantly (only because I can't do it myself if I want all my limbs)  feed those blasted hyenas!

"Oh, isn't it great, Puddin'," she was gushing, jumping up and down and squeezing me. "I set them right, I really did!" Oh, so the kid writes one article for a stupid trashy tabloid, and she thinks she's cured cancer, achieved world peace, and received a Pulitzer in one fell swoop! Typical of Harley. Arkham shrinks think they're such big shots. Luckily, I cured her of that particular malady, though I just can't get rid of the stupidity lodged in her brain without a weapon.... We couldn't even do anything decent tonight because there was some B-list (at least in my circle - hey, it was hard to see anyone else as a celebrity when you were the top of the A-list) celebrity bash Harley just had to attend. She'd bought about six million dresses (without my permission), setting me back on the blow-up-Wayne-Manor plan by a few thousand dollars.  Women! Sometimes I wondered why I didn't just work by myself and hire a maid service to do all the work...wait. I'd tried that, and nobody would come out to the house. Harley was the only one who knew she was beneath me; the rest of the world had to be convinced. Even Batman thought he was better than me, which was a ginormous lie. Gadgets and his flying rat suit might have trumped me in the past, but I was the one with the superior mind. Someday, someday soon....

"Pammie said she was party-crashing, and that she'dwear the green sequined Alice + Olivia to set off her skin, so maybe it's too matchy if I wear the bluish-black sequined Aidan Mattox. Maybe I'll wear that blue silk spaghetti-strap dress; it's got such an interesting cut...but maybe not. It's too much for my first big public event." Who did she think she was? I'd taken her to tons of parties - granted, someone usually died or lost a valuable item when we were around, but I (usually) let her have some time to hobnob with the snobs. Harley was still tossing dresses around my bedroom!

"Ooh, I like this one, the navy blue satin with the beads around the neckline...but the bright blue lace is so stylishly sexy....What do you think, Puddin', honey?"

Was she seriously calling me 'honey'? And did she seriously think I cared what she wore to her suck-up ball? With all the Cosmopolitans she read, I thought she would have known by now to never ask a man what he thought about clothes, especially a man like me, who was so busy with important things. I gathered up all my anger and let it radiate through my face. The stink-eye was particularly excellent. Bravo, Joker. Her face fell.