Morbid Thoughts About Balloons

When you're planning a party, you think, "Hey, party! You know what lends a festive air to every event? BALLOONS!" And you fill up five hundred million of them, after which point your lungs resemble the balloons before you blew them up. Then, hoarse-voiced, you get your party started. You've spent so much effort on the damn things that you're already beginning to resent them. They sit there in a pile on the floor, cheerfully mocking you.

"Whee! Balloons!" Everyone is very glad to see the buoyant spheres. People start playing the universally acknowledged "poke balloon in air" game. Then, as they become increasingly intoxicated, they start tripping on the balloons. This is not what you had planned. Balloons are supposed to provide atmosphere, not the sole focus of the party. Here you are in the corner, trying to discuss the Austrian School of Economics, and everyone is spending all their time gaping at balloons.

Fuck balloons.

Look at them, smugly underfoot. They need to die now. This is your fucking party.

You stomp on one.

BANG.

Everyone looks at you like you've just murdered a kitten.

Thanks to Aaron and Lauren, who put on their best "You've just murdered a kitten!"
faces for the occasion.

You decide that you can't be the douche who goes around stomping on balloons in front of everyone. You'll look unstable. There must be an easier way, an efficient way...

Enough of this shit. "These things are getting in the way, I'm just going to move them, all right?" You gather all the balloons and herd them out the door and a ways away from the house.

Then you go insane.

You jump up and down, bursting several balloons with each leap. The balloons pop like gunshots, but the trees muffle the sound. You show those balloons. The ungrateful bastards. You spend all that time on them and they steal your party. You'll show them.

After the killing spree, you return to the party, looking fresh-faced and cheerful. Everyone has to engage in your conversation now. Ha.

As they leave, no one notices the tiny shreds of rubber that are the remains of your five hundred million balloons.

And yet, weeks after the party, you keep finding partially deflated balloons. They're hideous and squishy. They've taken to hiding in the strangest places. But you can never fully eradicate them.

The balloons will always be there. They've taken your breath and turned it into bitterness, but their sheer tenacity renders them immortal. You have to cut them apart individually with scissors; stomping just doesn't do it anymore. They die at last under your blade with a resigned hiss.

So what, you ask, is the morbid thought?

Balloons are like political prisoners.

THINK ABOUT IT.