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| Rescue Me Balloon |
Place: the Mississippi River
Situation: A young boy and his father are out on a leisurely boat ride aboard their trusty 15 foot Cacci Craft runabout. Several miles from civilization, the father decides to head into a backwater slough to do a little fishing. Boy sets anchor and they fish for 30 minutes. At the end of that time period, father attempts to start their reliable 65 hp Mercury outboard. It will not start. Over and over the father tries to start it without luck. Eventually father decides they should try to paddle to the main channel to get someone's attention so they can be towed to the nearest marina. This goes horribly wrong and they end up stuck on a small island separating the slough from the channel. It's getting late. Storm clouds are on the horizon. What to do?
If the Rescue Me Balloon had been invented then, they could have launched this and been rescued within a short time. The Rescue Me Balloon is a lightweight, compact, easy-to-carry device, which puts an SOS balloon 150 feet into the air, flashing an SOS signal with a super-bright LED that can be seen for miles. As far as SOS devices are concerned, led balloons are the way to go. Your emergency rescue is imminent.
Instead, father gets out of the boat to try and pull it off the island, only to be confronted with a deadly water moccasin snake, whose strike narrowly misses the father's head.
Hours later, having finally been able to paddle the craft to the main channel, the father/son team are able to flag down a passing boat and are towed to safety.
The Cacci Craft (now dubbed the Crappy Craft) and its POS Mercury engine are sold to some sucker and the father buys a 45-foot houseboat, which stays in port 95% of the time. The boy becomes hydrophobic and moves to the desert. The domino effect rears its ugly head. This is a true story (except for the last part. I didn't move to the desert and am not hydrophobic. Makes a better story though, doesn't it?)
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