My wife’s name is Deb and she is a balloonaholic. I hate to bring this up in a public forum, but the woman is in denial. She won’t admit that she has a problem.
Sure, it started out innocently enough. A little social ballooning once in a while, maybe a two-day weekend here and there. I barely knew her then, although we had already met. Deb didn’t really have a problem yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against ballooning. I’ve even done it myself and it was kind of fun, as long as I didn’t open my eyes. This wasn’t much of a problem, however, as the flight was over before I ever really woke up and I was immediately given champagne to celebrate the fact that I had not fallen out. I never went up in another balloon again, but I have helped crew a couple of times.
It’s just not for me. Balloonists get up far too early in the morning on a regular basis. Worse, they start to actually enjoy getting up when it is still dark outside, which is one of the first warning signs of a balloon addiction. The second is an inability to sense that gravity is much higher outside the basket than it is inside of it. As any reasonable person who slept through college physics knows, if you look over the edge of the basket at a height of more than 10 feet, this excess gravity will suck you right out.
Balloonaholics will deny this fact of nature.
When we started dating, Deb was a normal person, apt to sleep until the sun was actually providing light. After all, we lived in Flagstaff, Arizona at the time. Flagstaff is not exactly the ideal place to engage in hot air ballooning. For one thing, the place is filled with balloon-eating trees - tall, pointy pine trees with lots of needles and sharp branches. All the points aim upward like a huge bed of spikes, just waiting to impale any unfortunate floating object that gets too close.
Yeah, Deb was okay while we lived in Flagstaff. She got out to Phoenix, Page or Gallup, New Mexico occasionally, usually for a major event. She’d go to these events and look for someone to crew for. Once in a while, she even got to ride in the balloon. I didn’t even worry about it. A harmless hobby, I thought.
We got married, moved to Phoenix and suddenly Deb had easier access to balloons, as the hot air balloon season in Phoenix lasts most of the year. The landscape is a little more conducive to the sport, too - very few trees, mostly flat dirt with an occasional mountain or cactus thrown in to make it interesting. However, we moved to Phoenix late in the season. Just about the time that I started worrying about her obsession, it became too hot to get one off of the ground without melting it down. I relaxed.
As the summer months baked the desert, little balloons started appearing in our personal environment - balloon bumper stickers, balloon calendars, balloon lamps, balloon posters, balloon jigsaw puzzles. Balloons appeared on our return address labels and were usually accompanied by a small balloon sticker. Our computer suddenly had a hot air balloon for a start-up screen. Deb added balloons to her wardrobe - balloon earrings, balloon t-shirts and a handmade vest for her buttons, to which she spent hours and hours adding sequins to create a balloon on the back. You name it and if you can find one with a balloon on it, Deb probably bought it.
Still I did not worry. This was obviously just a harmless fad. She could just as easily have been collecting something normal, like baseball cards, historic issues of Spiderman comics or rock stars’ guitar picks.
Fall arrived and Deb’s balloon fixation started to be a regular thing - once a month, then every second weekend. Before I noticed what was happening, Deb was getting up at four in the morning almost every day to see if it was going to be good flying weather. She would spend hours on the phone talking to other balloonaholics about things like the best way to care for wicker, tethering techniques and the all-important question of whether you should squeeze all the air out of a balloon after it lands or just sit back and drink champagne until it flattens out on its own.
She started taking pilot lessons. I began to get a little concerned at this point, especially when she began to hint "how much fun it would be" if I were to accompany her on these daybreak excursions. After a little thought, however, I decided that she was still probably okay, just a little too overzealous for my own good. I decided to keep a close eye on her and get plenty of rest.
Evidently, I didn’t keep a close enough eye on her because one day she came home with a hot air balloon in the back of her pickup truck. With two baskets. I was certain she had stolen it - we certainly didn’t have enough money to buy one. Even if we did, this was the type of expenditure one might expect one’s spouse to discuss with them, especially if said spouse is not a balloonaholic themself.
It turned out that she met somebody who just happened to have a couple of old balloons hanging around in his garage that he wasn’t using anymore. In fact, his wife had been bugging him to get rid of one because it clashed with her neon pink jeep. So he just gave it to Deb.
Right.
I didn’t believe this story for a minute, but she did produce a title. Deb now legally owns a balloon. I think I’ve lost her for good.
She’s already informed me how badly she wants to move out of our apartment and into a house. Of course, this idea is only workable if the house has a garage. Not for the cars, mind you. She needs someplace to store the damned balloon.
Right away, Deb went out and had some sort of scientific test run on her new old balloon, during which it was determined that the balloon would probably not disintegrate and fall out of the sky within the next 50-100 hours of flight. Then she really got excited. She started doing desktop publishing work for pilots, trading a business card and letterhead layout for a pilot lesson or a part.
Now she’s got a balloon, two baskets, one set of instruments, propane tanks, a fan, a pickup truck (which she had owned prior to developing this affliction), special balloon gloves and her spiffy little sequined vest. She is ready to fly her balloon.
We must keep in mind, however, that Deb does not yet possess a pilot’s license so, no matter how ready she thinks she is, she cannot actually put her balloon in the air. She’s earned a few hours of actual piloting time, but hasn’t even started studying for ground school yet. She hasn’t even seen the book. There are a few other lingering problems, as well - minor issues like passing an annual inspection, insurance and psychiatric care. Colors for the crew uniforms have, however, been determined and the uniforms themselves may even be on order.
I know one of them will be my size.
I need everyone’s help here. Do not give, sell or otherwise allow my wife to come in possession of a copy of the ground school manual.
It’s for her own good.
Table of Contents