There’s been a lot of hot air over the big balloon blowup
Who needs a balloon to spy on us when there are cellphones?
We didn’t see 99 red balloons go by, floating in the winter sky. We just saw one.
Some say it’s a weather research device. Others say it’s a spy balloon, purposefully sent to bob threateningly over Montana.
This hypothesis brings up several important questions:
Why was the balloon floating over our airspace? What was it observing? Whom do men prefer, Ginger or Mary Ann?
Sorry, I got distracted on the last one. But wait, maybe I wasn’t distracted.
Maybe the balloon sent hypnotic laser beams directly into my brain in order to prevent me from asking difficult questions.
As a responsible, hilarious, dashing, and above all modest writer, I refuse to engage in pleonastic circumlocution and prolix discursions on the true nature of the event in question.
I prefer shameless, irrational fearmongering.
There are many plausible reasons why the People’s Republic of China should be so upset that we — for those of us slow on the uptake here, I am referring to the United States — shot down a harmless little old balloon that was only twice the size of my high school’s gymnasium.
Reason 1: It was a cute, funny balloon that you, the United States, did not need to murder with an F-22.
Reason 2: It was a civilian research vessel and we, the People’s Republic of China, just happen to be interested in American meteorological conditions around missile bases. Nuclear radiation does funny things to the weather, doesn’t it?
Reason 3: No, sorry, in our last reason we meant to say our balloon was blown off course. We promise you can trust us. Quick, look over there!
Of course, spying on our best friends and favorite enemies is nothing new.
Many Americans still remember that time in 1960 when one of our civilian weather research U-2 planes got blown off course and bobbed threateningly over the Soviet Union.
What a furor that caused. We were merely trying to find out how cold Russia really was, specifically the bits around the nukes.
So spying is a time-honored and respected mode of intelligent conversation between countries.
It’s just spying in a brazen and open manner that ruffles our feathers.
Not that I am suggesting that anyone was spying brazenly and openly. Heavens, no.
The above was one of those sentences which, like a balloon, can be easily mistaken for something other than it is.
For the sake of the amity and concord which has distinguished several minutes of China-United States relations, I propose we all blow off some steam (ha!) and take a closer look at what came down off the coast of the Carolinas.
On the one hand, the balloon could have been bigger than expected because one needs a lot more space to write “civilian research vessel” on the side than “spy blimp.”
On the other hand, it could be that to measure big thunderclouds, you need big balloons. I’m no expert on the weather.
On the third hand, who is? No one can really research the weather anyway. Aha, so what else could such a balloon be? A large party favor?
Some might say it is our responsibility to tear down the tarpaulin of suspicion and to send up the dirigibles of charitable interpretation.
This metaphor is struggling for liftoff, and one could certainly punch holes in it.
Yet it is worth considering that a balloon is, at the end, merely a balloon.
If someone really wanted to spy on us, they could do it in a simpler and more efficient fashion.
It’d be easy enough to create a psychological attachment between us and small technological devices.
We would use these devices constantly, even when we went to the bathroom.
We’d broadcast our personal information ceaselessly and willingly. We’d cheerfully spend hours with them, mindless, unaware…
I’ll finish that sentence. Just let me check my phone.