Tell me you watched the live coverage of Balloon Boy today.  Don’t break my heart and just tell me you did.  I sat at work, hunkered down in my office, my face only dimly lit by the bluish view from my computer screen rooting on the six year old inside the homemade space craft.

*Errrrreeeeek!  *record comes to a SCREECHING halt.

Let me just bring you up to speed if you a) don’t have Twitter or b) were living under a rock.

Today the news stations were all flustered with a breaking story.  A six year old boy!  Runaway aircraft!  Wait, wait, runaway homemade aircraft that looks like a giant flying saucer! 10,000 feet above the ground!  He was losing control, cameras were following the little spaceship’s every move!  People were flipping the eff out on Twitter.  #Balloonboy became a trending topic on Twitter in like 32.4 seconds and everyone was like, “OMG!  #Balloonboy is not a laughing matter!  He could B dead!!!!”  And I sort of giggled because I was just like, “Musin… Clev… There’s a kid in a BALLOON that looks like a SPACESHIP.  Oh and it’s spiraling out of control over the Rockies.”  And then we all had a good laugh.

But then the unthinkable (and by unthinkable I mean how did we NOT see this coming???) happened and they got the balloon down and no six year old boy popped out.  None at all.  In fact, I was a little nervous when the people were hacking away at the spaceship and I was all THE BOY!  WHAT ABOUT THE BOY INSIDE?! Until I realized, oh hey, he’s not in there.  He’s probably fallen out… SADFACE.

I was really sad.  Mainly for the family because the death of a child, *shudder* is terrible but also because MAN, this story had so much potential for funny.  I laughed allt he way up until there was a lack of boy in the balloon.  In fact, I have several instances I’d like to point out.

1) Exactly what kind of family has a homemade, spare, functioning spaceship just lying around?  I mean, are they in the habit of creating such vehicles?  Is this a side hobby of the family?  Are they in the Real Live Spaceship business?  Spaceships ‘R Us: You dream it, we make it.  (No, you shut up.  If I had a spaceship making business that is totally what I would name it.)

2) How exactly did the conversation go when they realized the kid was missing?  “Oh hey, anyone seen Falco-OH MY GOSH.  He’s floating away in our homemade fully functioning astronaut farmer spacecraft!!  CALL THE GUARD!!!!”  That’s all there is to say about that.

3) The kid’s name is Falcon.  As in the bird.  That flies.  Is anyone else seeing the irony here?

4) Let’s just take a minute to grab some lines from news anchors reporting this debacle…  We all know Shep Smith has uttered my favorite line of all time.  (Wait… Did we not know this?  Short version: Guy runs up while Shep is reporting on Katrina, crazy, drunk guy running around without his shirt on, Shep says, “Sir! Sir!  What are you still doing here?!  Everyone is supposed to be out!”  Crazy, drunk guy screams something about partying with Katrina or something and Shep looks back at the camera, deadly serious and says, “THAT guy’s probably gonna die.”  The end.)  But today an anchor actually looked at the camera and said, “This isn’t the kind of thing we see very often.”

I’m sorry.

What?

VERY OFTEN?!  When have you ever seen a six year old float away in a homemade spaceship?!  That would be NEVER, my friend.  Never.  Not once.  Not last week.  Not since Area 51 was the talk of the town.  Never.

5) And finally, let’s just address the little fact of where Balloon Boy actually was…  After his parents have called out the National Guard or whatever military service they were using.  After CNN has had this kid as their breaking news headline for the majority of the day.  After I have spent the last two hours of my workday glued to my computer screen do we find out… Little Falcon?  He was IN THE ATTIC.

Yeah.

ATTIC.

Probably just hanging out.  Playing army or pretending to be Anne Frank.  I’m not real sure what six year old boys do when their in the attic alone while the rest of the nation worries that they might not be alive any longer.  Wanna know why I’m not so sure?  Because the rest of the entire nation and I were too busy watching the spiraling Jiffy Pop container over the Rockies!  Wondering if the child has already plummeted to his death!  Yeah, that’s what I was doing.  What about you?

Long live AH!  Deuces!

*drops mic….