OK, let me explain.

I got a message from  Tania Woodward late this afternoon asking for help getting a few balloons to the Mansion today.

One of the staffers is coming back to the Mansion from a long absence, and Tania and the other aides want to celebrate her return with balloons.

It was late in the day, and I was stumped; I was swamped with work and appointments tomorrow, and I wasn’t sure how to find some ballons tonight in time for tomorrow.

They tell me I’m like a Lab chasing after ducks when asked to do something. I guess they are right.

I haven’t failed yet in five years of hunting and searching.

I realized that the Dollar Store was my best bet. I’m not a great fan of the Dollar Store movement, I don’t believe in the very lowest price for everything as a sacred thing. The stores are dingy and crowded and chaotic.

They do have great prices and they sell almost everything. But I wouldn’t want to live in a purely Dollar Store world.

After I stopped by Walgreen’s to get my second booster shot against Covid and its deviant followers, Maria (she got her booster too) and I headed to our local Dollar Store, where Maria shops all the time, and I found regular balloons.

In fact, they have a “party section.”

Still, Maria spotted these shiny helium balloons hanging from the ceiling. They were better.

I confess to being puzzled by the people who insist vaccines are a federal power grab; vaccines have saved my life many times and spared me from polio, shingles, and diseases like the mumps. I suppose of there weren’t impressionable people desperate for outrage, there would be no president like the ever greedy Donald Trump.

I wish everyone and their children health and compassion. And I trust my doctors for medical information, not any politicians. I know most of them to have hearts of coal.

The cashier was named Mike and he  I had a few laughs talking about the sounds people who inhale helium get to make. He wouldn’t let me blow one up, and he used a helium tank.

Mike was helpful and friendly, we had a good time talking. He was tired, he was just about to go home for the day and he was ready. He took me to the back of the store to show me the balloons and then back again upfront, where the helium machine was. The cashiers get to do it themselves, but not orally.

He handed me the five helium balloons I ordered and I took them out to the car.

I ran the balloons over to the Mansion and left them with Lily, a new aide who will have it ready for Tania in the morning. It was good to meet her. The returning staffer will have a bit of a surprise in the morning.

I think the helium balloons will be a hit.

Maria was having fun making fun of me with helium jokes, and she took this photo, which might be the best photo of me ever taken.

I’m impressed by the composition, as the real artists love to say. She got my best side.

Donald, my Leica instructor, was brought down by Covid this weekend, so we had to postpone our session tomorrow by a couple of weeks. He is young and strong; he’ll be fine. Heal, Donald, and take care of yourself, your admiring student.

Two more weeks for me to do my homework.