Today I bought some beeswax, face masks and a package of candy corn from Ace Hardware.  The kind lady behind the counter offered my son a balloon.  Noooooooooooo I thought.  I hate balloons, because blowing them up hurts my face.  Am I the only person who feels this way?  Here is how it happens.  I stretch out the balloon a little bit, because that’s what the balloon guy does when he’s about to make a horsey or a giraffe, so I figure it’s the mark of a professional.  Then I start to inflate the balloon, inflate, inflated.  Yay!  A balloon! 

Fifteen minutes later, the back of my jaws burn like the fire of a thousand suns.  It’s not so much a pain as a irritation.  It feels like the insides of my ears itch.  And this continues for a couple of hours.  I don’t blow up many balloons.  I’m not sure how you can “do it wrong” but I do, every time.  Balloons hurt my face.  When there is a party that calls for a balloon, I go make dip instead.  Leave the latex for someone else.  But today, I decided to give it another shot, and I blew up the red balloon, watching the Ace Hardware logo expand from a tiny black smudge to a four inch graphic.  Maybe this time will be different, I told myself, which is the same thing I tell myself each and every time a balloon finds its way into my life.  And each time, I am wrong.  It is never different.  It always sucks.  It even blows.  Ha. 

The damn balloon only lasted ten minutes.  My daughter tried to eat it (she tries to eat everything…old fossilized broccoli hiding beneath the kitchen table…worms from my worm bin…did I blog about my pet worms yet?)  and it popped.  Then she tried to eat the dangerous rubber pieces.  Fucking balloon.  My son cried because his sister ate his balloon.  Or at least bit it to death.