The Things We Miss…

By not watching TV during the day time. Or being near a computer. Thursday is my day to deliver meals for Meals-on-Wheels, and this week I was training a new person, so I didn’t hear the story of the boy being aloft in his family’s homemade hot air balloon until it was well under way. The last house on my route, the woman asked me in to watch, and there was the balloon, at about 1,300 feet. Colorado had a lot of snow over the last week or so, so I’m guessing that high up would be really, really cold. I don’t know about oxygen. My heart sank for that little 6 year old boy, and for his family, so frantic and worried. By the time I got home, the balloon was just landing, and no boy in sight. No basket in sight. Not good. Looked like perhaps the basket, with the boy in it, had fallen. Or maybe he had fallen out of the door to the basket.

Hours later, I turned on the TV to see that the boy was found safe, hiding in a box in the crawl space above the garage. Not answering when his family called for him. Hiding, because he had gotten in trouble earlier in the day for going into the basket without permission. His dad probably trying to instill in him an idea of how dangerous it could be, and DO NOT DO IT. Whew. What a frikkin relief. Watching that balloon, hearing about it on the radio while in the car, I was almost in tears for that poor family.

But then, Ted came home, from a very busy day at work, where he had heard nothing of the story. He saw the kid in his parents’ arms, and said, “oh, that’s good”, and missed all of the drama of it. Didn’t spend much, if any, time worried that this little boy had fallen from a balloon, frozen maybe, and would never be found, or found in someone’s yard or field. He had missed it all. I kinda wish I had missed it all, though I did enjoy the relief of knowing he was OK. It’s interesting to me how much more emotionally invested we are when we watch a drama like this as it unfolds, rather than coming in at the happy ending.

Whew. Yay to happy endings.

*Sure looks like this whole thing was a fake.  Jerks.  I can’t imagine putting my children through something like that.  These people are trash personified.