I was watering the tomatoes on a Saturday in June when a water balloon hit me square between the shoulder blades, hard enough that I actually shouted, and turned around to find two of the Osei kids frozen on their own lawn across the street looking like they very much wished the ground would open up.
It hadn’t been meant for me. That much was obvious even before either of them said anything. There was clearly some larger battle underway involving at least three kids and a garden hose, and my back had simply been in the wrong trajectory at the wrong moment.
The Apology, Such As It Was
One of them ran over almost immediately, soaked through already from whatever had been happening before I got hit, and said sorry in that fast, breathless way kids say it when they’re more worried about the consequences than actually sorry yet. I told them it was fine, which it was, it’s just water, and I wasn’t even mad, more surprised than anything.
What happened next is the part I didn’t expect. Instead of the conversation ending there, the kid looked at my shirt, now soaked, and then at the hose still running in their yard, and asked, with what I can only describe as genuine curiosity, whether I wanted to just join in since I was already wet anyway. I said no. I was in the middle of watering tomatoes. This did not seem to register as a compelling reason.
How I Ended Up Involved Anyway
I didn’t join the water balloon fight, to be clear, but I did end up standing at the edge of their yard for a good fifteen minutes afterward, watching, offering commentary, at one point pointing out that the balloon supply on one side of the battle looked dangerously low, which earned me a look of betrayal from the child I’d apparently been rooting against without meaning to pick a side.
Their parent came out at some point, apologized properly this time, the adult version of the apology the kid had already given, and I said honestly there was no need, that getting hit with a stray water balloon on a hot Saturday was not exactly the worst thing that had happened to me that week, and might have been one of the better parts of it, if I’m being truthful.
What I Didn’t Say
I didn’t say, because it felt like too much to put on a Saturday afternoon conversation about water balloons, that the house has been quiet in a certain way for a long time, and that having kids across the street, loud and careless and occasionally soaking innocent bystanders, has been a good kind of noise to have nearby. I don’t think you can say something like that to a parent you’re mostly friendly with over the fence without it landing heavier than you mean it to.
So instead I just said it was fine, and meant that too, in the smaller and larger sense both.
The Tomatoes, For What It’s Worth
I never did finish watering the tomatoes that day. By the time the water balloon fight wound down and everyone dispersed, sunburned and exhausted the way kids get after an afternoon of that kind of effort, I’d lost the thread of what I was even doing out there. I went back out that evening instead, after the heat had broken a little, and found the plants had survived the interruption just fine.
A Small Rule I’ve Made For Myself
I’ve decided, unofficially, that getting hit by a stray water balloon once a summer is an acceptable cost of living across from a family with kids that age, and honestly I think I’d miss it if a whole season went by without at least one near miss. I mentioned this once to Wanda, who does not share my view. She keeps a golf umbrella by her front door from May through August specifically for this purpose, which she showed me with real pride, as if she’d solved a problem I hadn’t realized needed solving.
I haven’t gotten myself an umbrella. I figure if it happens again, it happens again, and I’ll have another shirt to change and another story to tell about it, which honestly feels like a fair trade for the aggravation.
The Rematch
It did happen again, actually, about a month later, though this time I saw it coming and managed to dodge, mostly, catching only a glancing spray off the edge of the balloon rather than a direct hit. The kids seemed almost disappointed by my improved reflexes, as if I’d broken some unspoken rule by not standing there and taking it like I had the first time. One of them told me, with total sincerity, that I used to be more fun before I started paying attention.
I took that as a compliment, oddly, even though I don’t think it was fully meant as one. There’s something in being teased by a kid for getting slightly better at avoiding water balloons that feels like a strange kind of acceptance, like I’d become enough of a fixture on their side of the street that my reactions were worth commenting on at all. I let the second balloon get me on purpose after that, honestly, just to smooth things back over. It seemed like the generous thing to do.