‘Which is to say, not much.’

There’s a reason that Stephen King puts balloons in his stories. Balloons are scary. They bob around in your face, they squeak,  they pop. If you rub them, they’ll even pull on your hair. 

Sometimes the balloons in the stories are being held by a clown. Which is, like, doubling down on the scariness. Why, even before Mr. King wrote It, I thought clowns were scary. Circus clowns, TV kid-show clowns, even McDonald’s clowns. All of them: scary. I honestly can’t think of a clown I find amusing. And I’m 73 years old.

Being over 70 means I remember John Wayne Gacy. He was a suburban serial killer guy who liked to dress up as a clown and lure young boys to their deaths. I’m not sure how this worked, since, if I saw a clown as a child, I was the opposite of “lured.” At the very least, I would shrink away, if not outright run for the hills. (Fun trivia note: Lots of serial killers have “Wayne” as a middle name. You can read more about that right here in my story, “I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Wayne.”)

My childhood reaction to balloons was pretty much the same: a definite shrinking away, sometimes in tears. As I recall, The Child had a similar childhood balloon aversion.

So, imagine my surprise when Her Childness told me about an outing she and the SIL took last weekend. They went — with Mr. Baby — to an exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts that featured balloons. It was called “EmotionAir,” and featured many examples of what they call “Inflatable Art.” (Which, ahem, I call “balloons.”) Balloons you could blow up. Games with balloons. Rooms filled with balloons that you waded into and frolicked among. I can honestly say the photo they took of Mr. Baby surrounded by “Inflatable Art” is the only one I can recall seeing that features him not smiling.

Well, so much for balloons. As far as I know, they haven’t exposed Mr. Baby to clowns yet. Well, except for one. As you can see from the video below, she was pretty funny. And she wasn’t even wearing a wig or makeup.

New York City. May 2025