Fear of Clowns Anyone?

I have heard of people who were deathly afraid of clowns but I have never known anyone until now! Carter has a paralyzing fear of clowns! He told me a few months ago that he never ever wanted to go to the circus. I asked him Why and he said because I don't ever want to see the clowns, they are scary. If he sees one on television he freaks out!

So yesterday we are at the grocery store and we are in the cereal isle. I said he could pick out one cereal. Out of 400 different kinds of cereal, my son picks the Barbie cereal (which he ate this morning out of his favorite pink bowl, but that is another post). I then saw the Reese's Cereal and on the box it had a little batman figure and it said "FREE BATMAN FIGURE INSIDE" so I showed it to Carter and we got that cereal too. When we got to the car, he asked if he could have his Batman figure. I said sure gave him the box of cereal and he opened it and OMG he threw it and started screaming, a fearful awful scream, his face was filled with terror, I mean I have never seen this look on his face before. He was sitting in his car seat and had thrown the box of cereal down and the figure he threw on the ground. He started to ball up in the fetal position and he actually stayed that way the entire 20 minute drive home! He told me "throw it away, put it in the garbage, I never want to see that scary guy again! I don't want it" I had to walk in to the garbage while he sat in the car and watched me throw it in the trash can!! (I didn't actually put it in there because I wanted to show Gabe) He wouldn't even let me bring the box into the house last night because the scary guy was on the back! The scary guy was the Joker and let me tell you, it is SCARY looking, I would have been scared to if I were a 4 year old little guy!
I guess I should have looked at the back of the box!

~Sandra