A Bouncing Shadow

I was checking the gap near the glass patio door when I found an uninflated purple party balloon tucked under the curtain hem! Obviously, blowing it up was out of the question—too big for my lungs—so I came up with something even better. I gathered five smooth glass marbles from the decorative dish nearby, nudged them inside the deflated neck one by one, and pulled the rubber taut over an empty ceramic teacup. When I let go, the heavy rubber pouch snapped against the ceramic with a deep, muffled thrum, sending a marble skittering across the floor in a wild zig-zag. I spent the next twenty minutes chasing down the rebounds!