Balloons, etc

And, in a real sense, I am a grotesque balloon animal

Trudging down the stairs with Monty this morning, I saw that one of my neighbours had put out a recycling bag overspilling with still-inflated balloons. I was compelled to stop, and ponder.

Were balloons recyclable?

What were balloons even made of?

Rubber, as in actual rubber you get from trees?

If they were, was that recyclable?

Or were balloons made from some synthetic material?

Silicone, perhaps. And what, anyway, was silicone?

It sounded too close to silicon not to have some sort of connection, and yet it seemed so far from the hard element that makes the electronic world work.

Monty was pulling me on, but I had to think this all through. The balloons were still fully functional. If they couldn’t be recycled, perhaps they could be re-used. Throwing them away seemed such a waste, while they still had some turgidity in them. Could I take them? And what then? My kids are too old to play with balloons. And of course balloons don't have the impact they used to.

When I was young a balloon was a major event. They would only appear on very special occasions. They were to be treasured, nurtured. Balloon tennis. Rubbing them against your jumper to create enough static to stick them against the wall. The final, exultant, dirty, chthonic delight to be had from bursting them.

But could I really take them back to my flat? What would Mrs McG say about it, going, as it did, 180 degrees against her passion for decluttering (i.e. throwing away all my Special Things and Important Stuff). Could I take the balloons and give them to random children in the street? How many would I get through before the inevitable arrest and prolonged questioning?

No, that wouldn’t do. But the great bulbous mass of them was somehow ... wrong. There was an inefficiency, here. I could, at least, burst them, and release the trapped air - another form of recycling. Or, hang on, wouldn't the gas within the balloons be largely carbon monoxide, rather than healthy oxygen? Perhaps, global-warming-wise, it might be best to leave the gas trapped, for now. The only thing is that I knew that I had the means to burst the balloons. I bought a Swedish army surplus coat last year, and one of the metal buttons soon dropped off. I'd secured it by means of a safety pin. If you show a gun in the first act, you make damn sure you use it in the third, or whatever the saying is. I removed the pin from the inside of my coat. I expect my face was already contorted in a Satanic grin: I was going to be doing some bursting, and the joy of destruction was on me.

But then I heard the unmistakable noises of activity within. My neighbours were getting ready to emerge for the school run. I dragged Monty away and down. The metal button with its jaunty anchor motif fell softly on the carpet.