“I heard this from more than one person but one girl that told it to me said that it was, um, her cousin that this happened to… So she said that her cousin was, um, babysitting in a suburb of Minneapolis which is like a big metropolitan area in Minnesota and, um, that she… you know the parents left and whatever and the kids were asleep and she was just hanging out in their den. And she was on the computer, watching TV, stuff like that. And then there was this statue in the corner of a clown, it was a like a short little like not a big statue or a person-sized statue just a little statue of a clown just standing in the corner that she thought was watching her. So she was really freaked out by it and, like, she moved around and felt like it was like looking at her so she eventually left the room but she had to go back in to get something or maybe she wanted to watch TV again or something and she felt like it had moved a little bit. And so she was really freaked out by this clown so eventually she just went to call the parents and she was like ‘you know, you have this clown statue in your den and it’s, like, stupid and do you mind if I move it because it’s really freaking me out. I feel like it’s watching me and I wanna just put it in a closet or something.’ And then they were just like ‘Wait, like, …what?’ And she’s just like ‘You know, in the corner of the den. It’s like a little clown statue.’ And then, they’re just like ‘We don’t have a clown statue in our den.’ And then she’s like ‘It’s like a, like a, like a…midget-size!’ And they were like ‘GET THE KIDS OUT OF THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW!’ And then the next day, there was a news story about a midget that had escaped from an insane asylum that was like in another neighborhood. Which, it clearly was not a true story ‘cause I heard it from like two other people but this girl was totally convinced that this happened to her cousin and that her cousin was really freaked out and they never found the guy that was watching her and it was a real person.”
Sarah does not believe in this legend because she heard multiple accounts of this occurrence from different people in different areas. As a result, the story became less believable for her because the chances of an escaped midget from an insane asylum happening in all those different places are not as probable. The cousin was around 14 years old when this incident supposedly occurred. When I asked Sarah why she thinks this story keeps circulating, she says that she believes this story attracts interest because there is often a fear among young teenage babysitters taking care of the children all by themselves in someone else’s house. I agree with her because the role of the babysitter is to protect the house and the children and this responsibility can be quite daunting for an adolescent who might not be able to defend herself in the chance that a stranger sneaks in and hurts them. Babysitting at night is especially scary because the babysitter is usually unfamiliar with the children’s house and any noise can easily raise suspicion and paranoia about its source.