Balloons In Public

Seeing balloons in public places can present several problems for this globophile, although not the problems you might expect. No, I do not get a hard-on when I see balloons tied to the antennae of cars in a sales lot. I don't even get a hard-on when I see a pretty girl blowing up a balloon to decorate a store. Not even when I saw my lovely wife sit on a balloon and pop it for the first time ever while playing a game at a picnic.

Now, I did get a hard-on later, in bed with her, thinking about her sitting on the balloon, but not at the time. I can't honestly call it monumental self-control; the situation just seems to sort itself out in the moment. Were I lucky enough to watch, say, some exotic dancer doing all kinds of intimate play with balloons during an adult show, my restraint might go all to hell. But I haven't been lucky enough to test that theory yet.

No, revealing my sexual interest in balloons is not the big problem with encountering balloons in public places, but there are a few uncomfortable aspects.

First, although I am turned on by balloons getting popped, I am also afraid of it, and embarrassed at the prospect of revealing my fear. Oddly, it is not the odd unexpected pop that is likely to cause that problem—I've gotten past that many times without too much trouble—but the anticipation of a pop, the build up of tension where I start to show just how cowardly I can be. While a balloon is being blown up close to me, or when someone is handling a balloon roughly or getting it too close to something sharp or hot. If I see it coming, I'm a mess.

And what's really disturbing to me is that it's the same tension that, under the right circumstances, can be one of my biggest turn-ons. Not the hot or sharp objects, mind you, but the overinflation or the bouncing around on a balloon to make it pop. But if I can't control the situation, with some kind of hearing protection or a chance to keep my distance or beat a hasty retreat without embarrassment, then I can actually break out in a sweat over the threat of a balloon popping.

Conversely, if I come across a situation where a lot of balloons are being popped, like someone cleaning up decorations at the end of a party or store sale, using pushpins or scissors, I usually (although it's rare that I am present for such an event) don't feel afraid. But I do feel very disappointed at the waste, and I am not comfortable with staying around to watch.

But, truthfully, although those are the situations I think most about, I encounter balloons much more often in situations where there is little chance of any of them popping. Then some of my other, less sexual and more emotional, feelings start to kick in.

Take the situation of balloons tied to cars. I want them. I want to steal them all before they get ruined by the sun or pop on the hot roof of the car or just got destroyed without appreciation at the end of the day by some salesman with scissors. I feel they same way about all kinds of balloon decorations when I see them; I just want to have them and play with them and pop them in a way that has meaning to me.

If I see that a store has balloons that are imprinted with their logo, I want to get some uninflated ones for later play. I was much braver about asking for this when I was young and single. Actually, I was pretty brave about asking for inflated balloons to rescue them from destruction in my youth as well. Come to think of it, I was also lucky enough to own a van to bring them home in then, too.

Occasionally, I see balloons in some kind of contact with a pretty woman, and it makes me crave some sexual balloon activity, not with that particular woman, but with my own wife. But, unfortunately, there is little opportunity for such play in our house now, and so the craving goes unfulfilled most of the time.

Which brings on that strange psychological phenomenon, where you start thinking you are just being surrounded by the one thing that is on your mind the most. After one encounter with a pretty woman recently, who had balloons floating in her area at a hair salon in such a way that she would brush against them a lot, with her butt, when she was working on a client, I suddenly seemed to see balloons everywhere I looked, in stores, in car lots that don't often have them, at the local church bake sale. And it just makes me want to have my kind of fun with balloons all the more.

Unfortunately, it doesn't increase the actual chances that such fun will, in fact, happen.

Hoarding Balloons

I know this isn't true of all globophiles, but I have a tendency to keep buying balloons even though I have more than I can possible use, especially given that I live with wife and kids and have very little private time to indulge my fetish. I seem to have gotten over this to some extent in recent years, although I still find myself veering off to the party section at Wal-Mart when I shop there to see what they have in the way of balloons.

(The answer, if you're curious, is that they have 9- and 12-inch balloons, which are not horrible but not the best either; some are in bags of 72 and really quite reasonably priced. But I digress.)

I've managed not to buy too many balloons lately, but I still have a rather large stash in my nightstand drawer. Some are relatively recent purchases, from about a year and a half ago when I had the good fortune to be in a large city with a Qualatex Master Distributor. I bought a bag of 100 11-inch jewels and a bag of 50 16-inch jewels. These are for decorating and special occasions.

But I still had about a hundred balloons left that were beginning to get a little old and seemed like they might be kind of unreliable. So I made a promise to myself that, over the course of the current year, I would blow those balloons up and pop them.

You see, I can't just throw them away. It just doesn't feel right. Can't give them away, either. So for the past few months I have been making sure that I blow up and pop at least three balloons every week. It's not as easy as it sounds; I have very little privacy (from my kids; my wife is fine with it).

There was a time when I had a couple of thousand uninflated balloons in my possession. It made some sense before I had children, because I could blow up a hundred or more at a time for play and I would use them up in a reasonable amount of time. But once I became a Dad, the chances for that kind of play just fell by the wayside. But I kept accumulating balloons.

It took me about ten years, including a couple of moves, one across country, to pare my balloon hoard down to the size it is now. I'm surprised that some of the balloons can still be inflated with relative safely. I have some 36-inch balloons that are at least 15 years old, and they have been find so far (obviously, I don't manage to blow up anything that size three times a week; those get used about once a year). I have some white balloons that go back even farther, and I've blown those up, bounced around on them, and actually found them hard to pop.

Pretty much all the old balloons that still hold up are made by Qualatex. I haven't been so lucky with other brands even after just a few years. Once my varied stash has been used up, the remaining balloons will be all Qualatex. I won't try to use those up quickly, but I won't keep them around for ten years, either.

Maybe I'll be able to do something more spectacular when the kids have left home.

If I'm still up to it.