The Case of the Missing Balloon

On Valentine's Day each year for some time now, Sharon has snuck a gift into my office, or at my current job left it at the security desk. Last year was no different; she brought a giant, helium-filled frog that barely sat on the ground and hopped when I towed him, attached to a dozen, large, bright red, heart shaped balloons.

As usual, I put him up on my top shelf in my cube.

Meanwhile, our upper management, realizing that some people had been working long hours and forgotten to get their Significant Other anything for the holiday, brought in bunches of flowers, candy and cards for the miscreants to take home. Our CEO announced this in an email beginning, "In many ways I think it is the company's best interests to help our employees achieve a reasonably high level of domestic tranquility." The man has wisdom beyond his years.

Not having forgotten the holiday, I didn't need anything, which was a good thing, as the scene downstairs afterward was a wasteland; the marcomm group handling distribution looked stunned and a bit frightened.

Sitting at my desk the next morning, happily working away, our travel person (let's call her Carol) walked by. She smiled and said, "I took one of your balloons last night."

I laughed. "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did!"

"Nonsense, there are still twelve..." I counted. Eleven. I counted again. "Oh, so you did. Why?"

"I wanted a little extra something for my husband. But you don't know how many balloons there are!"

"Of course I do. My wife sent me a dozen."

"She did not! You got those downstairs!"

"No, they didn't have balloons."

Consternation. "Are you serious?"

Steve popped his head over the cube wall. "They didn't have balloons. Those are from his wife."

"Oh, no! I thought you just grabbed a bunch of extras from downstairs!"

I teased her a bit, then realized she was really upset. I assured her it was no big deal. I thought it was funny. So, of course, did Sharon when I told her.

The next morning when I got to work, there were two really nice, red roses in a wine bottle. Carol had felt so bad she wanted to try to make it up to me! "I'd have brought it back, but I had written on it with a Sharpie[tm]." (She didn't say, "[tm]".)

She must have apologized a dozen times that day.

The frog is now flat, like roadkill. I released the rest of the balloons into the wild (either outside to disappear into the sky, or inside with their ribbons trimmed so they floated around about chest high). The roses withered and wandered off into a trash can.

The wine bottle sits on my desk. I still grin when I look at it.