Tillie Buh-Loon

So, here's a picture of Tillie with her ephemeral best friend Purple Balloon. This was her first helium balloon, and they had a brief but passionate friendship. (PB burst some time during the first night while Tillie slept.) So the next day, when we blew up a different balloon with just air and tied a string to it, she was very disappointed that it did not "work" right. Scott "fixed" it by getting it to stick to the ceiling with a little static electricity generated by rubbing it on Tillie's fluffy curls. She was satisfied. My scientific mind was a blown, however, as I noted it was empirically almost impossible to tell the difference between a helium balloon sticking to the ceiling through buoyant force and an air-filled balloon sticking to the ceiling through electric charge interactions. Sometimes a little too much knowledge is bad for you!

PS. She now runs around the house dragging the balloon by its string and collecting dog hair and dust with it--the perfect pet!