I use the pump now

For anybody who doesn’t know, a 260 is the long skinny balloon you make the dogs and swords out of. Two inches around, sixty inches long when it’s full. They’re hard to blow up. The first couple inches are the worst. You have to push like you’re trying to get a stuck jar lid off with your face.

I did them by mouth for thirty years. It’s a little bit of a show thing. Kids watch you go red and it’s funny, and then the balloon finally starts going and they cheer for it. My dad did it that way and so did every clown I learned from. A pump was for when you were doing two hundred balloons at a car lot grand opening, not a kid’s party.

In June I did a party in Greentown, an eight year old, maybe twenty kids. Around the sixth balloon I got lightheaded and had to sit down on their porch step. I played it off like I was falling over on purpose, real slow, and the kids thought it was great. The mom brought me a glass of water and didn’t say anything, which was worse than if she’d said something.

I sat in the car after and did the math. A pack a day, give or take, since I was 19. I’m 54. I didn’t finish the math.

I ordered a hand pump that night. Two-way kind, it pushes air on the up and the down so it’s quicker. Fourteen dollars. It works fine, and the kids don’t care, it turns out. A couple of them wanted to work the pump themselves, which is a better bit than me going red anyway, because now they get to do something.

I still blow the first one by mouth at every party. I don’t know why. To see if I can, I guess.