Americans from the left coast to the right are suffering with cricks in their necks. We haven't been so fascinated by a balloon since Dorothy hoboed one back to Kansas.
Citizens out west were puzzled by the mystery craft, slowly bobbing about 60,000 feet above. Was it a weather balloon? An unidentified alien craft? A happy 11th birthday gone awry?
Once word got out that the balloon was of Chinese origin the alarm-o-sphere went into hyperdrive. Within minutes everyone knew this was no everyday weather balloon but a shape-shifting hydrogen filled orb packed with anthrax carrying mosquitos, radioactive rattle snakes and double knot level spy lasers.
What seemed worse to me was if this was a spy balloon, that meant somehow the Chinese managed to alter the jet stream so the balloon would follow a path across our country. That's the only explanation because, although balloons are the oldest man-made flying machine, we still haven't figured out how to steer one.
To look at specific places, the wind has to take it there.
I hear what you're thinking. Skeptical? Wondering how SJ could possibly know anything about balloons you don't know?
Easy. I'll answer that with one simple question. How many of you got married in a hot air balloon?
I'm betting none. I got in one single. It went up; it came down; I was married. I know balloons.
So bend to my authority.
But I digress. All over the country, true patriots pointed their smartphones to the sky making TikTok content raging about Uncle Joe letting China send a balloon to spy on them. Fellow patriots shared them on Facebook and Twitter and, of course, Truth, the current champion of ironic naming.
They claimed this would never happen under Trump. He would have shot it down. But I wonder why would he do that when he could have popped them with his bone spurs? That's the photo op Donald would go for.
Ironically, Uncle Joe wanted to shoot it down when first identified but his military wouldn't cooperate. They had to remind the White House most Americans react badly when a ton of balloon and equipment fall on their house. Especially when a missile caused the drop.
Turns out two or three Chinese balloons actually did fly over our country under Trump and probably the ones before. But when confronted with this and other logical facts, most patriots stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted "lalalalalala".
Which is exactly what a few Congressional Republicans did during this week's State of the Union. Not that I actually watched it. I never do.
Reports say Uncle Joe managed to get through it without getting his foot stuck in his mouth. But it didn't stop the fruit loop brigade from showing out or for Representative Santos from taking credit for writing Governor Huckabee's "rebuttal".
Which is the actual reason for the cricks mentioned in the first sentence. A lot of people got whiplash when they heard America had to choose between normal and crazy from the mouthpiece of the crazy.
The balloon? It was basically harmless. None of you came out of this episode hitched did ya?