I Met a Future Nomad Today

As most of you probably know, I twist balloons for profit and fun. I go to various restaurants and offer balloon creations to children of all ages. My oldest customers are a couple who has been married for 68 years. He is 94, she is 92. He gets either a flower of a heart and presents to her. I get a tremendous amount of  joy every time I see them. They taught me what perpetual youth is.

My youngest customers have to have their parents make the requests for them, as they haven’t yet learned to communicate on their own ( and most of the time don’t care whether they get a balloon or not). But my favorite customers are those who can talk and don’t know the meaning of the word ‘limits’.

Here is how I operate. I would approach a table with a child, and greet the family, then turn directly to the child and ask what (s)he wanted. They either tell me what they want or want to know the choices. I love it when they will listen to the menu, (I make almost 40 different designs) and then ask for something that is NOT on the menu. I love it because that is how I have come up with some interesting designs that no one else makes. Other times, I can’t help them.

And believe me when I say that they come up with some weird requests. I will never forget the time when I asked a four year old girl, “And what can I make for you, Sweetheart?”

Without hesitation, she replied, “I want a television with Hannah Montana on it.” Children don’t know the meaning of “you can’t do that.” Sometimes I wish I could get that childlike “innocence” back, then I could dare to endeavor what ever I want.

Tonight, I had a boy who couldn’t make up his mind, so the mother asked to come back later. When the mother signalled me back to her table, I asked the boy what he wanted. He must not even be three years old, for he could barely speak; but I understood him when he answered “Helicopter” it is one of the items on my “menu” so I made him the helicopter.

The mother requested a monkey on a palm tree. As I was making the monkey, I heard the boy say, as he dipped his helicopter and brought it back up and made it turn right into a full circle, “Helicopter goes around the world.” I had never heard a child say that before. So I told the mother, he was going to grow up to be a nomad. She said, “I know, he is already doing that.” I was glad to see that she recognizes it, and doesn’t see it as a problem.

Who knows, I may run into him in 15 years or so, piloting a real chopper, and I hope he remembers me as someone who once gave him a balloon helicopter. It’s times like these that I feel most satisfied doing what I do. I love it, I just LOVE IT!

So what is it that you want to do, that you’re having difficulty believing as possible. Share with us in the comments below.