Sammy couldn't decide between the waltzer and the fun house, but eventually settled for the former. Waiting in the queue with his dad, his eyes kept flitting back over to the candy floss stall, bedecked in bright, pink candy floss. He could almost smell it. Almost unthinkingly his feet moved one in front of the other, carrying him towards the swollen bags of spun sugar hanging from the stall front. He was standing under the bags, looking up wide-eyed. He would need money. From his dad. Where had he left his dad? There were hundreds of people around, but he couldn't see his dad or the fun house. He could feel the panic rising with the tears. But wait! Sammy remembered his emergency kit on his wrist.
Pulling back his sleeve he revealed a small cylinder on a wristband with a red toggle on one end. He pulled the toggle and a red balloon inflated itself from the far end, revealing the words "Sammy is here!". When fully inflated it detached itself from the wristband and rose slowly into the air, pulling a twenty foot line of cotton out after it that tethered it to his wrist. Sammy stood calmly under the gently bobbing balloon and waited to help to come.-- wagster, Nov 09 2004 Rescue Balloon http://www.halfbake...ea/Rescue_20Balloonthe curse of oldbies is idea déjà vu [FarmerJohn, Nov 10 2004] Leaving the ground, sammy realized that deploying seven balloons was perhaps unnecessary. +-- Worldgineer, Nov 09 2004 "Why didn't you use your balloon?"
"Aw, come on, Dad! I'm almost 3 years old now, you could've phoned me on my mobile and I'd swing past in my jeep and pick you up...."
:) Kids grow up so fast these days, and mobile phones for toddlers are just around the corner...-- not_only_but_also, Nov 09 2004 It was the Monday after the Superbowl, and the entire crew of the LCL manufacturing facility was hungover.
Big George was standing in for Lou at the helium cartridge filling station. He wasn't exactly sure how full to fill the cartridges, but Lou couldn't leave the head, and Big George would be damned if he'd be the one responsible for that big order not going out the door.
[Weeks later]......The balloon rose high into the air and Sammy watched in awe as the big wheel receded below him.....he began to cry.-- normzone, Nov 10 2004 2 problems:
"Ooh, it's a balloon! Who cares if there's no emergency?"
"Dad peered frantically through the sea of balloons to try and find the one his son was under..."-- RayfordSteele, Nov 10 2004 [Rayford] - Problem 1: Yeah, that's the drawback. I would probably let it off myself minutes after buying it.
Problem 2: He's under the balloon that says "Sammy is here!"
[not_only] - I usually just write my mobile number on my son in marker pen. That works pretty well.-- wagster, Nov 10 2004 I love the balloon idea.. perhaps get it to autoinflate when the kid is more than 20m away from it's looker-afterer. [neilp] acknowledges that apart from being a child once, he has no idea whether that would actually be a good idea.-- neilp, Nov 11 2004 I missed this one. I enjoyed the prose as well as the idea.-- Zimmy, Aug 02 2006 random, halfbakery