When we were in Brisbane we came across a street performer making balloon animals for donations. Donation my ass; he quoted prices. I personally think he's figured out a way to skirt the tax laws. Anyways, Mitchell wanted an Alien so we "ordered" the Alien and $5.00 later Mitch walked away one happy boy. We packed the Alien for the trip home. However, when we got to Brisbane baggage screening they pulled the Alien out and announced that we couldn't take the balloon onboard with us. Something about security guidelines, and how it could freak people out if it popped during the flight. Whatever. I was too busy trying to quell the sobs of a five year old boy to listen to reason. So tell me, how does it feel to crush the dreams of a small boy Mr-Baggage-screener-man? Don was on the other side of the metal detector, while Mitch and I were still near the conveyor belt. What do you do in a situation like this? So I did the only thing I could think of on the fly. I gnawed holes in the tips of the alien and squeezed the air out of it. Unfortunately the sight of having the Alien deflated in front of him proved to be a wee bit more traumatic for Mitchell than I had anticipated. He started howling, and these huge bloopy tears came pouring out of his eyes. At this point with people backing up around us, I shoved the deflated Alien in my pocket, picked up Mitch and hoofed it through the metal detector. With the excitement of the airplane ride (and the giant bag of M&Ms) I guess Mitch forgot about the Alien. I was doing a load of laundry the other day and found the Alien. I just can't bring myself to throw him away.