Allie Brosh - Solutions and Other Problems

For Kaiti. Theres so much I wish I could have said to you.

I saw a balloon going 90 miles per hour.

It was tied to a truck, so there was an explanation for it, but I dont know I guess you still just never expect to see a balloon going that fast. Balloons arent designed for that. They arent aerodynamic enough. This one was wobbling all around in spastic little circles, making a sound like wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp-wp. It seemed genuinely out of control.

I was laughing so hard I had to pull over.

I feel just like that balloon.

The first time I can remember feeling truly powerless, I was three, and I was trapped sideways in a bucket in the garage.

The bucket belonged to my dad. He used it for washing the car.

I dont remember exactly how or why this started, but through some contortion of childhood logic, I decided that I needed to get my entire body into the bucket.

The bucket had other plans.

Maybe I had something to prove. Maybe there was a compelling reason to need to be entirely inside the bucket that I dont remember. But I couldnt let it go. The fact that I couldnt fit my whole body into the bucket infuriated me.

Initially, attempts were confined to car-washing days. Slowly, though, I sought out opportunities to make extracurricular assaults. Id sneak into the garage by myself to try out different configurations.

Thats how I ended up alone in the garage trapped in the bucket.

When both my shoulders finally dropped below the buckets rim, I felt only the briefest flash of triumph before the sensation of being trapped kicked in.

I had done it: my entire body was in the bucket.

Except now, the only thing I wanted was to not be in there anymore.

No amount of thrashing could free me, but it did make the bucket tip over.

And suddenly, there I wassideways, four limbs deep in a plastic car-wash bucketonly three years old, and already doomed to spend my life scooting around like the worlds saddest upside-down hermit crab.

This is not what Id been trying to accomplish. I didnt even realize it was possible. Thats the scary thing about decisions: you dont know what they are when youre making them.

Fortunately, it wasnt permanent. I was rescued when my parents accidentally walked close enough to the garage to detect screaming.

And the bucket was relocated to a high shelf to prevent me from interacting with it.