Discipline

The balloon man. He used to be everywhere when I was a kid. At the carnival, the circus, and sometimes just walking down the street when Mom and Dad would take us downtown. What kid wouldn't want one of those big colorful orbs, so much bigger than the ones you would have at a birthday party. It was after numerous encounters with this purveyor of evil that I finally caught on. Those balloons were not for the kids. He was selling to Mom.

It was one fateful day at the zoo. Mom and Dad had taken us for our annual visit to see the animals, and there among the wafting odor of monkey shit was the balloon man.

"Does anybody want a balloon?" Asked my mom in her most pleasant voice.

I looked at that man and his balloons, all bunched up, each one tethered to a thin, willowy stick. I did not see the balloons. I saw those sticks.

"No." Was my simple reply.

"Are you sure?"

I don't remember if any of my siblings piped up and said they wanted one, but I didn't. Because by noon the next day that balloon would be wilted and drooping in its death throes. Mom would announce that the balloon was ready for the trash and dispose of it, keeping that thin, willowy stick. She would store it away in the kitchen pantry, pulling it out only for the occasion of disciplining her children. So yes, sweet Lila used a switch on her children. A switch supplied by that innocent looking balloon man. But that's not the guy I really held a grudge for. That would be the man who sold my dad his belts. I can still vividly see him running down the stairs after me, skillfully ripping his belt from his pant belt loops as he cursed and yelled for me to stop running or I was "really going to get it."