Fun with Balloons

It all started off so simply. Brent and I took our friend Matt Sheehy out for a drink to celebrate the completion of his amazing solo album. Afterward, we popped into my office to play a little table tennis. The office was a bit trashed because we had hosted an annual Halloween extravaganza earlier that day, and the remnants of candy wrappers, balloons, and confetti still littered the corners of the immense atrium. Amidst the chaos of the party, the ping pong balls must have been stashed away, and we could only find a single ball that had a crack along the seam, causing pitiful and irregular bounces. If it hadn't been for this crappy ball, we might not have embarked on any of the following adventures.

We searched around the atrium for lose ping pong balls, and during the search, Brent came upon a helium balloon that was sitting gently on the ground, having just too little helium left to stay afloat. Matt and Brent wondered what would happen if we could create a balloon that was at equilibrium with the air around it. Would it hover? Since this balloon was just slightly too heavy to float, matt began slowly removing weight from the balloon. First we took off a bit of string. Then we removed the entire string. It was still too heavy. Next we removed a piece of plastic that was holding the string onto the balloon. The balloon still did not hover. Finally, Matt carefully cut off the rolled up ring of rubber from the bottom of the balloon, and BINGO! We had a balloon that was almost exactly in equilibrium with the air around it.

Brent demonstrates the beautiful hovering nature of our balloon!

We took the balloon outside and began a 2 hour experiment, testing our magical hovering balloon's properties! We found it is great for attracting strangers to interact with (and even better at attracting dirty looks from hipsters that think they are too cool to play with balloons, until they realize it is actually a super cool hovering balloon, in which case they still give you dirty looks because they weren't smart enough to invent it themselves).

Matt discovered you could balance the hovering balloon on the side of your head like a seal!

We also discovered you could wave your arms around the balloon (raver-dance style) and keep it afloat for a very long time! You could also put it on your back and walk quickly, and it would kind of stick to your back and walk with you.

We didn't want our wonderful night of balloon magic to end. Matt said he wished for an entire room full of hovering balloons. Imagine what fun we could have! But alas, it got very late, and we had to call it a night.

A few days later, we came home to find Brent's house filled with balloons! Our housemates Jeff and Risa had attended a birthday party for Jeff's Dad, and they must have had a lot of balloons left over. There were balloons everywhere! There were balloons in the bathroom, under each towel on the towel rack, balloons in all of the cupboards and dishwasher. There was even a balloon that popped out of the trash can! Jeff and Risa had decorated a lot of the balloons with pictures and messages (example: The balloon hidden under my towel in the bathroom said "peek-a-boo" on it). Brent and I were shocked at the coincidence! Suddenly our lives were intersecting with magical balloon experiences left and right.

Remembering Matt's wish to have a room full of balloons, I took this photo of Brent and emailed it to Matt so he could see what Jeff and Risa did.

Since Jeff and Risa were already asleep by the time we got home and discovered the balloons, Brent decided that we should prank them back. We gathered as many balloons as we could find and tied them together in an elaborate balloon wall. We used Brent's "pimp cane" from his Halloween costume (he was Roy of Siegfried + Roy, and I was the white tiger that attacked him) as the base, and knotted the balloons together at every intersection, so that it would be difficult to walk through them.


Then we placed the balloon wall in front of Jeff and Risa's door, so that they would be smacked in the face with their own balloons when they woke up in the morning. Mu Ah Ha Ha (evil laugh).



Luckily, we woke up before Jeff and Risa, and I managed to set up my camera in time to film the outcome of the prank...


Hooray! It turned out so great. Until Risa asked "Where did you guys get all the helium from?"

Whhhhaaaaaaa? Brent and I looked at each other, confused. "Wait, you guys didn't fill the house with balloons to prank us?" we asked Jeff and Risa. "No! We thought you filled the house with balloons to prank us." They replied. OMG. A magical elf had been in our house and filled it with balloons. Who could have done such a thing????

wait for it.......


Of COURSE! It was Matt Sheehy!


Matt fessed up, and sent this picture from the afternoon, when he planted the best surprise ever. But he was not alone. Matt made Brent and I guess who his co-conspirators were in the great balloon prank of 2010. I smelled Ramona Falls bass player, Dave Lowensohn all over it. Brent guessed Seth and Ali. We were both right. We are so lucky to have such incredible friends!

Let this story be a reminder that an openness to the unexpected possibilities in life can often lead to the most fun and rewarding, although unplanned, experiences. If we had found a normal ping pong ball, then none of these amazingly fun balloon adventures would have ever happened. Thank you, universe.