Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Last week we went out to eat at Red Robin. Mmm ... hamburger with guacamole, bacon, jalapenos and spicy jack cheese.

As we were leaving, my son asked if he could have a balloon, so I asked the hostess. Of course we can have a balloon. That's the whole point of balloons. However, my son wanted an uninflated balloon ... a raw balloon. Nope. Can't have it.

Try to explain that to a three-year-old boy. Actually try to explain that to me!?! I have to assume that some restaurant somewhere was sued by some moronic parent whose child choked on an uninflated balloon, or whose child lost a finger after wrapping the balloon around his finger so tightly that the blood couldn't circulate, or whose child lost an eye from stretching the balloon and letting it go like a rubber band only to have it slip and hit himself. You know - all the stuff you did as a kid.

Back when I was a kid, if I choked on something or got hurt by something, my mom would put a bandage on it and my dad would backhand me (metaphorically speaking) with a comment like, "that's what you get for ... [insert stupid kid decision here]". He didn't sue the school when my brother pried a thumbtack out of a toy and swallowed it. He didn't sue the Ginsu knife people when I cut most of my thumbnail off whittling hot dog sticks. We just learned not to do stupid things to avoid getting hurt: first getting hurt by the stupid thing and second getting hurt by the punishment for doing the stupid thing.

So, Red Robin doesn't give uninflated balloons, but they do give helium-inflated balloons. Isn't it possible that a kid could come up with some stupid idea to get hurt with that? I'm sure I could have.

It's a little sad to me that we have to be so aware of all the ways people might get hurt. I get it. I mean, I don't want my kids or their friends to get hurt, but I don't like that we're all so hyper-sensitive to it. I think it makes us all a little paranoid and a little less likely to let our kids have fun with their friends (especially when their friends are in our homes) because we're too worried about someone getting hurt.

If my mom had lived with that mentality, my friends and I would never have played superhero because that involved a lot of jumping from the back deck onto the grass. Oh, and bike jumping across the open trench in my friend's backyard would have definitely been out of the question.