Sixty Luftballoons
07-29-05, 11:08 AM

At 4:00 a.m., a thud hit behind me and a plastic wrapped newspaper skid past me as I hunched over a clear, plastic garbage bag filled with colorful balloons.

�Hey, what�cha doing?� asked the newspaper delivery man in a beat-up Ford Escort.

�It�s my mom�s birthday, so I�m surprising her.�

�Oh.� He hits the accelerator and the rattling car moves to the next drive.

With sixty orange, red, blue, aqua, purple, yellow, green and pink balloons on matching plastic sticks, I lined their curvilinear drive and adorned shrubs and trees with �Happy Birthday� metallic like banners and cut-out letters. Afterwards, I stood proud admiring my lung�s effort and the Easter Bunny stealth-like approach to dispersal.

Yesterday - Tomorrow