Due to maybe the current airline crisis and rising costs, or perhaps to a new adventure sport bend or perhaps to just sheer stupidity, people are taking to the skies in ways only dreamed up in cartoons: by balloons.  Not large hot air balloons but a shit-load of typical helium balloons.


 


Yes, like a pothead watching The Red Balloon, seemingly sane people have been looking at our airy latex friends and thinking "We could float together!"  Or as cluster-balloon enthusiast John Ninomiya puts it: "Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?"  If your answer is "Not at all actually" then you are either older than 6 or not a cartoon character.  Ninomiya is apparently the only person in North America who has flown the Cluster-balloon and one of a select few to fly a Cloudhopper, which is essentially a hot air balloon without a basket, and like the Rocketeer or Wily Coyote you have a jet pack strapped to your back shooting flames into the balloon.  Sure it sounds pointlessly dangerous, but Ninomiya believes it is more than that.  "Unless you're really pathologically gregarious, you probably enjoy some occasional time by yourself, and with a Cloudhopper, you discover that flying a balloon is a wonderful way to spend that time." 








There is of course a down side to all that fraternizing with mylar and that is death.  For example, the case of Father Adelir Antonio de Carli of Brazil, a Catholic priest who disappeared this week, after floating off on the awesome power of 1000 balloons in an attempt to raise money for a truck stop parish.   While offering to do something incredibly stupid is always a great way to get money from people, there should be so many more options before "I'll attach a thousand balloons to myself."   The balloons, meanwhile, have been found floating off the coast of Brazil proving that while we may love balloons, they will inevitably abandon you when the going gets rough.



This balloon selfishness has even gone so far that some states have outlawed any release of 20 or more balloons into the air.  The bill started in Maryland after the unfortunate balloon attack on Inky, a year old sperm whale, that washed up on the Jersey shore.  Animal rescue then went through a ridiculous six operations on the whale to remove three feet of balloon plastic from her intestines.  While Inky survived, it is unknown whether the cluster-ballooner she clearly swallowed is still in her stomach, perhaps waiting for his puppet to become a real boy so that they can sail away together to a balloon paradise.  Because once you've dedicated yourself to the sweet solitude of just you and your balloons, who knows how lonely your life has become.