The Day The Butterfly Died

Two weeks ago my son-in-law turned 30 years old. We celebrated with ice cream cake, a special lasagna dinner and lots of balloons.

Unlike the regular latex balloons, those mylar foil balloons are great - they stay afloat for weeks and when they stop floating at last, they can be reinflated all over again for pennies.

Because we have five grandchildren here, we bought five mylar balloons for Josh's birthday so each child could have one to play with. One died a sad, untimely death in the car on the way home. The poor thing was stabbed by a new toy.

At least 2 others escaped out the front door after a day or two around the grand kids... (Sometimes my favorite song is "I'll Fly Away" too - on those days when solitude is sold at a premium.)

But one die hard butterfly balloon flitted around the living room ceiling for the past two weeks. Having lost it's ribbon days ago, it was content to remain aloft, out of reach of little hands.

About 5 a.m. this morning, I was rudely awakened by a noise that sounded similar to a series of gunshots. As I struggled to awaken, I heard it again. I struggled out of bed to see what had caused such a clatter - I knew it wasn't the time of year for reindeer hooves on the roof.

I arrived in the dining room in time to see the suicidal butterfly attack the ceiling fan for the third time unsuccessfully. By this time Josh was also awake. He grabbed the poor butterfly before it flitted upward again and put it out of its misery permanently.

I'm not sure whether he just didn't want to see the poor thing suffer or whether it had something to do with turning 30...