Work Stories: Episode 24: Fire in the Sky

Previously on Work Stories, I wrote about that time that I found ants in my food.  Then I didn’t eat the food because there were ants in my food.  Then I threw out my food because there were ants in my food.  Then I was sad because there were ants in my food.  This week I won’t tell a story that’s quite as sad to me as finding ants in my food.

This week’s story takes place at the museum that I currently work at.  Part of the job is to make sure that there are balloons.  Why must we make sure there are balloons?  Our place of business likes to use balloons as a sort of advertisement.  We blow them up and have people hand them out on the street.  That way, when tourists are walking around the streets, they might see a balloon and think “Oh, I’d like to go there.”  I don’t think it works all that much, but we do it anyway.  It’s what we’re paid to do.

It would be a lot more work if the employees had to put balloon to lips and inflate them all that way.  Plus, there would be some serious health hazards associated with that.  Using that method of blowing up balloons would pass around germs, viruses, and other sicknesses.  You don’t want to kill people with the balloons.  You want to bring them into the museum.

For blowing up the balloons, we have a machine.  There is a nozzle on the machine that you put the balloon on.  You push the balloon down on the nozzle, and the motor starts.  Air moves through the machine and out the nozzle.  This inflates the balloon.  Then you take the balloon, and you tie it to the holder.  There is now a balloon on a stick, and you are ready to hand that balloon out to the public.

Now, this might not sound interesting at all.  In fact, it might sound too technical for my blog posts.  But there is a reason that it is all there.  Here it is.

One night, my coworker was blowing up balloons for the next day.  We like to make sure at the end of the night that there are a few dozen balloons available for the morning because there is already enough stuff to do in the morning.  Partially that and partially common courtesy, I guess.  Anyway, when she pushed down on the nozzle, flames shot out of the machine.  Or so she told me.

She came out front where I was manning the cash register.  She told me all about how the machine had spit fire at her.  I didn’t believe it, so she sent me back there to check.  I went back and looked at the machine.  It looked just like it had before.  I pushed down on the nozzle.  Air came out.  But there was a smell lingering in the room.  It was a smell that I’ve smelled many times before.  When a lot of your childhood involved going to campgrounds and sitting around campfires, you know this smell.  It is the smell of smoke.

We unplugged the machine, never to use it again.  It took about a week for a new machine to come in so that we could once again blow up balloons.  I will never forget the night that the old balloon machine almost caught fire.

That’s this week’s work story.  I think that’s one of the more well written installments.  I should write these after midnight more often.  See you next week for another installment of Work Stories.

Until then, let’s all mourn the loss of Happy Endings.