I will never look at water balloons the same way again. Yes, they're all fun and games until you're the one making them. They take an average of 15 seconds to make and one second to break. You might think 15 seconds is no big deal, but when you're preparing water balloons for an hour long activity that's a lot of seconds (3600 to be exact). Multiply that by 15 and you've approximated your prep time. Not mention carrying the suckers. Water is HEAVY and enclosing it in little rubber shells does make it any lighter. So the problem of finding a water source as close as possible to the end site is not a hiccup to be scoffed at. Just 20 feet is a long way to lug and there are no water sources that close to our prep site. Plus, kids have no respect for the prep time. They all (regardless of age or sex) fascination with water balloons that causes them to lunge and destroy any water balloon in their vicinity. A guard must therefore be posted at all times near the water balloon stash to ward off possible culprits. Ideally, this guard would have five arms and legs to move fast enough and snatch quickly enough at the offending thieves.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating the gravity of the situation just a little. But not much. For four weeks, five days a week, I spent each afternoon dealing with these kinds of problems. I wasn't alone. Wesleigh and I were partners in this battle and we came up with a pretty streamlined process for dealing with all these eccentricities. To start, we prepared the balloons in her section's bathroom. Bottom floor of the girls' dorm, as close as possible to the volleyball court where our activity was held, six sinks, and lots of willing helpers in the form of her girls to help the actual prep time go faster. To ward off potential thieves, the first two buckets of balloons would be taken out to the court, covered with a towel, and guarded by one of us while the other retrieved the rest of the buckets. To make the balloons last longer and keep ourselves sane, we limited each section to only two buckets of balloons. Once the balloons were gone, a real volleyball was produced to entertain them until the end of activity. Less water was also put in the balloons themselves. This meant they would usually only break after a few falls to the floor, not the first one.
All these techniques helped our activity run smoother, but bottom line, we were both so nauseated by the mere appearance of water balloons, we considered having a burning party once activities were over for the summer. I have lost my water balloon innocence and I will never so casually throw a bomb of aqua again.
