Last time I checked, Bible school wasn’t supposed to leave marks. However, thanks to a shortcut in filling water balloons, some of us may be sporting a couple of bruises.
Knowing it would take hours to fill water balloons for wet night, we got those quick-fill balloons you put under a tap and fill up at once. The problem was there were no directions on how much to fill them.
So, the water balloons start flying as the kids threw them with ferocity at one another. What fun. However, only moments after the melee began I noticed a 6-year-old crying, holding his head.
“What’s wrong?” I ran over to him.
“I got hit with a water balloon,” he said through sobs.
“Let me see it,” I said, wondering why the kid was crying over a water balloon. It’s just water. Right?
I patted him on the head and told him to get back in the fight. That’s when I saw the little girl crying. I walked over to her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“He hit me in the face with a water balloon,” she said, accusingly pointing a finger at another child like she was identifying a bank robber.
“It’ll be OK,” I reassured her. “It’s just water.”
 I shook my head. It must be true about what they say about millennials being soft. These kids are whining about being hit with water balloons.
I turned to see another kid, this one clutching his back. “That hurt,” he said about being hit by the balloon.
“Kid,” I said. “It’s just a water balloon. They can’t do … BAM!” Out of nowhere something hit me under my eye. It was like someone had thrown a rock.
I looked around, rubbing my booboo, ready to scold whichever kid had thrown the rock when I realized … it wasn’t a rock that hit me … it was one of the water balloons. They weren’t busting until they hit the ground.
What had I done? I had inadvertently armed the Bible school kids with bone-crushing missiles they were happily hurling at one another, yelping and laughing in the same breath. I must have under-filled them, leaving the balloons much harder to bust. Sure, they’d bust when they hit the ground but only after they delivered bone-jarring impact on their target. Let me put this in Bible school terms – if David had one of these water balloons in the slingshot, he wouldn’t have had to find a stone to slay Goliath.
“Kids!” I yelled. “Be careful. The water balloons aren’t …” I stopped in mid-sentence, realizing there were about 15 kids, all armed with water balloons, walking my way in a skirmish line.
You wouldn’t think kids would be good at organizing but they must have been listening when they learned the Bible story about Gideon that week because they were like Seal Team Six, locked and loaded.
Come on guys,” I begged as they unleashed a volley of those killer balloons at point-blank range, the impacts feeling like I was being hit by wet rocks.
Note to self: Next year fill the balloons until they are about to bust.
Standard reporter Duane Sherrill can be reached at 473-2191.