Tucson’s thousands of unemployed have a chance to nab summer training for their dream job.

Every little girl and boy longs to don a tutu while perching atop an elephant. Well, maybe the boys would rather not wear the tutu. In either case, the dream can come true with circus training right here in town.

Tucson Circus Arts is offering classes for the masses, which may just fill the void for some of the thousands who are unemployed. This training was brought to my attention, in fact, by former TC staffer and amazing journalist Renee Schafer Horton.

Join the Circus, Renee Schafer Horton
Any registration for a class that includes the question “Will you be renting stilts?” has my vote for coolest summer class anywhere.

I just finished an Employability Skills Workshop offered for “dislocated workers” (the PC term for the unemployed) and during it, we were asked to think about our “skills.” My main skills – curiosity, risk-taking, tenacity, pretty high lie-radar – qualify me to be a good reporter (the job I just got laid off from) or …. a spy.

Circus work offers many benefits over the humdrum 9 to 5:

• Your desk is a circus tent

• Free nationwide travel

• A steady diet of corn dogs and cotton candy

• If you’re trained properly in acrobatics, trapeezery or ringmaster-dom you won’t get stuck with the dirty work, like sweeping up elephant dung

• You can probably wear what you want, as long as it involves sequins

Did you ever want to join the circus? A cult? The army?

Tucson act Dance of Illusion would thrive in a circus setting/Photo Ryn Gargulinski