Your mom makes you come to the farmers market. It’s not much fun, until you run into the balloon man. He is wearing a silly balloon hat, and funny yellow glasses. He makes a long balloon sword for your older brother, and then he asks you what you’d like. You are shy, and will not speak to him… not a word. That’s fine, the balloon man tells you, he’ll make a surprise for you.
The first balloon the balloon man blows up is long and straight. It doesn’t look like anything special, but when the balloon man hands it to you, you hold on to it tightly.
The balloon man blows up another long balloon, and then he begins to twist it. He bends the ends and twists the middle again and look! It’s a monkey, and the balloon man slides it right down onto the balloon you’re holding. Cool!
You would be happy with your orange monkey, but the balloon man isn’t finished. His green balloon becomes… a flower? No… palm fronds! Your monkey is climbing a palm tree!
And, to finish things off, the balloon man gives your monkey what every curious monkey must have: a pair of shiny black marker eyes! 
The balloon man has finished his work, and guess what? It may be a monkey in a palm tree, but it still works pretty well as a weapon when your brother attacks with his balloon sword.
Have you seen the balloon man? He’s making monkeys and swords, flowers and dogs at the Queen Anne Farmers’ Market. I can’t promise he’ll be around every Thursday afternoon until October 4, 3 - 7 p.m., at the corner of Crockett Street and 1st Avenue West, but the Market will be there.
Tags: 4 Comments
4 responses so far ↓
Where did you find the Reed double? We had to look more than once and only because we did not recognize the T-shirt or the balloon man.
Boy, oh, boy….we are so excited for August to get here!
The balloon man is wearing a woman’s vest. I can tell by the position of the buttons.
Oh, we need a clown at our market!