First news of the event broke shortly after 3 PM EST when I began my daily excursion into broadcast masochism by tuning in to WABC radio to subject myself to three hours of Sean Hannity - America’s favorite Radio Retard - who proceeded to regale me with a minute-by-minute account of the extraordinary adventure of Balloon Boy and the runaway helium flying saucer.

To be sure, it was a nail-biter: a home-made helium balloon carrying a terrified six year old to an altitude of ten thousand feet - only to begin losing the buoyant gas and then descend to earth, eventually plummeting at a gravitational acceleration rate of 32 feet/second².

Horrors!

Or not. The craft descended gently and was manually retrieved and brought to the ground.

And the boy? Heh…hiding in the attic above the garage of his home - as would any six year old who completely screwed up a project on which his father spend God-only-knows how many hours and dollars. Somehow the kid released the moorings that kept the balloon tethered to mother earth and realized, as it ascended skyward, that he had just stepped into a world of steaming poop. Hence his escape to the attic - sort of like ducking under the covers to hide from the “closet monsters.”

Hopefully, his parents will engage in the appropriate level of attitude adjustment (my father would have beaten the living shit out of me) and this sort of thing won’t happen again.

In honor of the event I offer this hopelessly cliched tune from the Fifth Dimension: