Biddy and the Yellow Balloons

Maia Louise would never eat even so much as one balloon as it would require far too much effort.

Out for a drive this past weekend, Bram had managed to find the one small uninflated water balloon that Griffin had left in the car, wedged between the seat cushions. I caught him with it fairly quickly and took it away before he hurt himself with it, but Bram's balloon incident instantly took me back more than 30 years to the neighborhood I grew up in and a much-loved friend and neighbor named Judy who had several Siamese cats and two big (and goofy) dogs.

Of the three cats, the smallest one was called Biddy, short for Dagmar Augustus Willibald, which was an enormous name for such a tiny cat as he didn't grow much from kittenhood. He was quite the handful though and was forever getting into situations that necessitated frantic phone calls or emergency visits to the vet, like the incident that will be forever known as "Biddy and the Yellow Balloons."

Judy's youngest daughter was having a birthday party, and naturally there were several bags of balloons that needed to be blown up. The morning of the party, Judy went to get the balloons and discovered that all the bags had been torn open and the balloons scattered all over. There were no yellow balloons to be found. Not sure what had happened, but not having the time to wonder about it for too long, she blew up the remaining balloons and the party went off as planned.

The missing yellow balloons were forgotten until the following day when it became obvious that poor Biddy was having some trouble in the litterbox. There, hanging out of his backside, was the end of a yellow balloon. Judy carefully and very slowly pulled the balloon from his butt, only to see another yellow balloon behind it. When that balloon was removed and a third appeared, Judy panicked and called her vet. He told her that so long as the balloons were being expelled, there was nothing to worry about, but that they all had to be removed with the utmost care so as not to rip little Biddy's intestines out with the balloons, no small feat given that balloons stretch when pulled.

It took several hours but in the end (no pun intended, I swear!), Judy had removed nearly 20 yellow balloons from her cat's ass and thus was born a story that has lived in all our memories for decades. Biddy survived his yellow balloon banquet no worse for wear and lived on for many, many more years continuing to cause his family an immense amount of stress and worry. Biddy is long gone, but the story of Biddy and the Yellow Balloons lives on and brings a smile to the face of everyone who hears it.

I'm just thankful it was one balloon with Bram and he hadn't managed to eat it.