Last week, the news went ape with this story of a little boy who snuck into a basket attached to a gigantic silver balloon in Colorado. You probably have heard already — the balloon spun in the air, high up, for about two hours, while authorities frantically tried to figure out how to rescue the kid. When the balloon landed two hours later, there was no boy.
Husband and I talked about it. If you’re six, of course, you’re going to climb into the basket and take off, and we talked about how he was probably scared and jumped, or how the basket must have broke under his weight, and how frightening that must have been. I didn’t want the kid to be missing or hurt or dead, but I still just loved seeing that giant hoagie of a balloon up there.
Now that the story has been revealed to be a hoax and the boy safe and sound, the image still gives me a great deal of pleasure. I have to say I loved seeing the giant balloon doing the whirling dervish in the blue sky — it was so beautiful and whimsical, and a wonderful, pleasant distraction from Office Life.