Need a quick birthday party idea?

Children. God love 'em. They truly are the future. But sometimes the "future" needs to be severely traumatized and made to think that they are being stalked by a murderous demon who wishes to do them harm. We all know this. It has been a bog standard part of child raising since time immemorial. Thankfully one Swiss company has decided to take the hassle out of you yourself doing the own damage to your kid. You can now rent out that kind of psychological trauma.

Dominic Deville stalks young victims for a week, sending chilling texts, making prank phone calls and setting traps in letterboxes. He posts notes warning children they are being watched, telling them they will be attacked.

But Deville is not an escaped lunatic or some demonic monster. He is a birthday treat, hired by mum and dad, and the ‘attack’ involves being splatted in the face with a cake.

‘The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,’ said Deville. ‘The clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.’

See? He's not an escaped lunatic, just a professional one, and he's not a demonic monster, just dressed like one. Can't you see why this is such a great idea. I mean if the kid does avoid the attack/shitting his or herself.... they get to keep the cake! Surely that is a valid reward for a week of being stalked by a demonic clown.

As if you needed another reason to think this was perhaps the greatest idea ever, it has the full endorsement of Clowns International. I have no idea what Clowns International is but I really, really hope that it's a clown and clowning trade union, with leadership votes, dues, strikes, and everything. Smokey rooms filled with cigar smoking fatcats saying things like "We gotta bust up this clown union! Then we can really start makin' some money!" or a man in a full clown suit banging his hand on a table and yelling "You can't push the clowns around any more! We get a fair wage for a days clowning or we strike and shut down this clowning factory!" Maybe a weepy businessman says "These clowns have got us over a barrel... give in to their demands." At least that's the way it goes in my dreams.

So, if you wish to traumatize your kid and you're too much of a pussy to get a divorce and blame it on him/her, then this is he next best thing. Unfortunately it's only available in Lucerne, Switzerland for now. Hopefully someone will be bringing this service stateside soon, otherwise our kids will only have general American society and culture to do grievous mental harm to them.