I found in this story 12 years ago, every now and thing I look it up to make sure I still have a scense of humor.. and thought I would share it.

ENJOY!

The horror of blimps
Last week while travelling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellors hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium put batteries in it, and you have a radio controll indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank attacched the gondola with the propellors, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral bouyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air currects it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil on converging on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering towards you with menacing intent through the maligant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my eyes, and there it was! A LARGE SILENT MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM, AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINSITER MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep mode" to HOLY SHIT! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!! mode" in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities. Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution know this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress (not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when you punch the living shit out of it with all the stength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd had.

Unbeleivably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack after all I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed the door, this sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.

***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we have assembled the blimp the previous evening, and that is was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dyndamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight towards her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

Hahahahah! Good one.

Mad

LMAO....thanks!

NOTHING is as scary as what you THINK it may be.......LoL

That's a funny story right there. The ceiling fan did not take her out but the wife did. Watch out men our blimps are not safe!
LOL!
W
PS. Well written Omega, it's hard to write humor and you nailed it. Whot!

Oh I wish I could take credit for that... however I cannot. I found that story about 12 years ago, the funny thing is I can see myself writing something just like that.

but hell, I hardly have time to get on here anymore.

Ha, thanks for sharing it though Omega.

They had to edit out the male dancers in that video.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FickleLastDeermouse-max-1mb.gif

Didn't know about this thread.

Reading Omega's initial story here reminds me of an experience I had.

Now you never know how you will react until you are put into a stressful position to really find out for sure.
We all would like to think we would be the one to save the day if called upon to do so.

Way back in 1980 when I was 16, a mate of mine and I took a train from Sydney down to a small town called Tocumwal to do a six day live in glider pilot course.
Tocumwal is one of the best places in the world for thermal gliding.

We would be staying onsite on an old American airforce base (Liberators) just out of town in rooms that were very basic, and we soon found that the only people staying nights on the whole aerodrome were our flight instructor Eddie, his girl friend, and us.

We progressed through the flight course and late on day 5 we both solo'ed (flying Blanik's and IS28's).
We were so happy and thrilled we hired a cheap old "rent a wreck" car for cash and drove into the town (even though neither of us had a drivers licence) to celebrate on the beers.

We returned back to the aerodrome half cut at around 12.30am.

When we entered our room we saw that someone had gone through our belongings and our clothes were strewn everywhere.
Straight away I looked for my dad's super 8 movie camera (I told you it was a long time ago) and my mate looked for his portable stereo.
Both were there.

Even though it was late we decided to wake up our flight instructor Eddie to tell him what had happened.
When we got to his room his light was on so we knocked on the door and told him what had happened.
He was very surprised and said we'd had all better go and have a quick look at our room and around the aerodrome, hangers and aircraft to see if anyone was still about which we did with no result.
It was really eery walking around the old aerodrome in the middle of nowhere late at night and in the dark.

Eddie then said whomever it was had probably gone now, and with that said he was going to bed and for us not to worry and do the same.

We went back to our room and started tiding up.
Within 10 minutes of this, we heard heavy footsteps moving loudly down the hall and coming towards out room. From inside our room we both looked out our door which happened to still be open and both saw a very ugly old man run past and down the hall to disappear at the other end.

Now we were really scared.
We were in a big empty strange dark aerodrome with some weirdo going through our stuff and running about.

We went straight back to Eddie's room and told him what had happened.
He said this had never happened before and again we went for another look around the premises.
Eddie then said that sometimes old drunks came through the aerodrome looking for alcohol, never did any harm or took anything else, and were pretty harmless so not to worry.

He then went back to bed and after cleaning up our room so did we.

But we couldn't sleep because we were both really scared and were talking about someone going through our things and was the person still on the aerodrome.

We found out after about 20 minutes.

From down the hall were heard a person approaching swearing loudly in a drunk voice and saying he didn't like strangers visiting his town and he was going to teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget and then starting bashing on our door.

Things get a little hazy here because I was so petrified I don't really exactly recall what happened next. It's erased from my memory.

The next thing I do remember was my mate and I were at the door and it opened.
There was a hideous looking man on the other side who was shouting and swearing.
Then there was the sound of screaming and our door started to open and shut, open and shut, open and shut ongoing.

All of a sudden there was hysterical laughter from the other side of the door. The screaming stopped, our door stopped opening and shutting, and my mate and I looked at each other.

We inched the door open and there on the other side was our flight instructor Eddie, on the ground laughing uncontrollably with an ugly rubber mask in his hand.

It was the prick all the time and he had set us up.

Once he stopped laughing and calmed down, he explained that someone had done exactly the same to him a couple of months earlier, scared the living shit out of him, and so he wanted to get someone else back.

He then let us know there really was nothing to worry about, it was him all along in the ugly rubber mask, and it was also him who had scattered our stuff about for effect.
He then told us to get some sleep and then trotted off back to his room very happy with himself.

Funny thing is even when we knew what had happened and there really was nothing to be worried about, we were still petrified for the rest of the night because the bloody experience had scarred us!

Now, the moral of the story is about the door opening and closing constantly and the screaming.

After discussions between my mate and I, it was discovered that the door was opening and closing ongoing because unbeknown to both of us, my mate was trying to open the door to get a look at was on the other side, and I was trying to make sure it stayed closed!
We didn't know it but we were battling each other to open and close the door.
Except for bashing on the door, Eddie advised he had never tried to open or shut it.
He also told us it was the reason he was laughing so much after watching the ongoing door battle!

And the screaming?
Well, that was solely and only me, and no one else.

So that experience has shown me that although we would like to think we can always be counted on to be the hero of the day in tough situations, it doesn't always work out that way...

* Last updated by: yannih on 8/23/2020 @ 8:23 AM *