Gabrielle Green is scared of balloons. Big ones. "I see the balloon, and it's very big, and I'm like, 'Oh my God, it's gonna pop,'" she says.
We will call it balloonpopophobia- and it is very real. Recently, in a completely made up poll, 76.8% of college freshmen admit to having been scared, at some point in their life, that a balloon was going to pop.
If you were in attendance at the freshman orientation banquet and you are a baloonpopophobe, chances are you were pretty freaked out when thousands of balloons rained down from the Gantcher ceiling.
"Oh shit," Green thought, "I won't be able to escape. The gunshots were going off and I couldn't do anything."
Balloons are such an integral part of our celebrations as Americans. On Independence Day, one sees patriotic balloons everywhere. On birthdays, balloons typically mark the mailboxes of those individuals who are one year closer to dying. At weddings, balloons line the path husbands and wives take to a lifetime of incarceration. Why?
For some reason, human beings from birth, are completely fascinated by expanded, helium-filled, plastic. I wonder what an anthropologist would say about the balloon:
A festive marker of any celebration, the roundness of the balloons and their presence at any social event is indicative of American's love for all things round. This may explain the recent influx in obesity, but until the test results come back we can't be quite sure...
Maybe we need to be a little more sensitive to the balloonpopophobes out there. "When I'm walking through malls and I see those clowns making balloon animals and putting them on kids' heads, I walk the other way," says Green.
I asked her if the noise of balloons twisting bothers her more than the actual presence of the balloon. "Of course it does," she responds, "that's one of the scariest things." And boy is she right- twisting is the fourth most common cause of balloon poppage across the continental US.
The third most common cause is atmospheric pressure, which would not bother Green because the balloon would be too high to be heard popping. Tied with atmospheric pressure is over-inflation. "If I saw someone over-inflating a balloon, I would ask them to please stop. Otherwise, I'd just have to leave the room."
Grass, second most common, pops an average of 30 million balloons a year. That is enough popped balloons to fill Gantcher and three semis.
The number-one balloon killer, however, is Dick Clark, who, on New Year's Day wanders through Times Square popping millions of balloons completely on his own. I think this is the secret to his astounding longevity.
We can all rest assured knowing that balloons will not be nestling their measly little selves anywhere near Green any time soon. When asked if she has any hope of ever getting over her phobia, Green said "I don't know if you can find hope with balloons. They're always going to be there, so you just have educate people about the dangers of balloon-popping and hope that people can understand and respect this serious problem."
Balloonpopophobia is a far more common phobia than I had ever imagined- within the time that I sat there, on the cold floor of Green's room, two other people have admitted to being baloonpopophobes, and one individual proudly admitted to being a popper of balloons.
While balloons will continue to inflate and pop a trillion more times in my lifetime, we can only hope that this world will become a little more Balloonpopophobe friendly.
