Definition
1 : an overabundant supply : excess
2 : an intemperate or immoderate indulgence in something (such as food or drink)
3 : disgust caused by excess
There is an abundance—you could almost say a surfeit—of English words that derive from the Latin facere, meaning "to do." The connection to facere is fairly obvious for words spelled with "fic," "fac," or "fec," such as sacrifice, benefaction, and infect. For words like stupefy (a modification of Latin stupefacere) and hacienda (originally, in Old Spanish and Latin, facienda) the facere factor is not so apparent. As for surfeit, the "c" was dropped along the path that led from Latin through Anglo-French, where facere became faire and sur- was added to make the verb surfaire, meaning "to overdo." It is the Anglo-French noun surfet ("excess"), however, that Middle English borrowed, eventually settling on the spelling surfeit.
"I think." I said uncertainly. "This may be one too many balloons."
I couldn't see the ceiling or any of the various light fixtures dotted about it. In fact, I couldn't see two foot below the ceiling either. The entire space was filled with softly bobbing, helium filled pastel balloons.
As the balloons were all pale shades of pastel and purple, it uncomfortably reminded me of a biology video I had once seen in school. I couldn't remember what internal part of the body it had been showing, my i did remember the nausea inducing movement of the fleshy fronds and lumps and the way they moved - pulsating in time with a heavy heartbeat, blood filling and draining, expanding and shrinking the flesh with every beat.
The balloons now swayed the other way, in perfect unison, and I felt my stomach roll.
"Seriously mum, I really think this is too many." My voice came out a bit squeaky. I mean, it's not like a had some sort of phobia about balloons, but this was serious overkill.
Plus, the more you looked at it, the creepier it go. Which was definitely not what you wanted for a birthday celebration, unless the birthday person in question liked that sort of vibe. This birthday person did not. They'd never even made it through Disney's Sleeping Beauty cause the crows freaked them out too much.
"What are you talking about?" My mum called crankily from the kitchen. "Maybe it was a bit excessive, but I hardly see why a few balloons would cause any trouble They float for heaven's sake so it;s not like they're getting in anyone's way."
"You call this a few?" I asked in disbelief. "You can't even see the top half of the room anymore." This was not necessarily an exaggeration. I was certain in the brief moment that I was watching them, the balloons had somehow... expanded.
Mu mum, clearly in stressed out party planning mode, stormed into the living room. "What are you talking about...." she trailed off as, opened mouthed, she stared at the ceiling. In true mum mode, however, she quickly recovered. "Why did you put so many up?" She demanded to know.
"Me?" I asked flabbergasted.
"Of course you, who else is here?"
"But, but." I stuttered. "I thought you did this!" I managed to blurt out.
"Why would I put so many balloons up?" She shot back.
"That's what I was asking you. And I asked first." I added.
"Well I certainly didn't do it." She said with a hmph.
"Well if you didn't do it mum." I said slowly. "And i didn't do it. Where did they come from?"
"Your dad?" Mum said doubtfully. I looked equally doubtful. Party decorations were most certainly not his remit. Plus he had escaped the house hours before to 'go buy some more sellotape'. We fully expected him not to return until after the party was in full swing - sans sellotape. Sensible man. My only bug bear with his plan of action was that he hadn't taken me with him and had just abandoned me to the wolves.
We both stared up at the balloons. Very carefully, mum reached up and gently touched the nearest balloon with the tip of her finger.
"It's warm." She said in absolute horror.
As one, we backed out of the room.
"What are we going to do?" I asked, terrified.
"The party guests will be here in about half an hour." She hissed. "We've got no time to deal with this."
"Mum, some unknown...organism is growing on our living room ceiling and you're worried about the party? I'm sure everyone would understand if we just cancelled.
"Absolutely not." She said instantly. "I have been up since 3AM doing that damn cake. We're having the party."
"But mum."
"We're. Having. The. Party."
"Yes mum."
We went back to staring at the balloons. (If I even thought about referring to them as anything else, i did a full body retch. So, balloons it was.)
"What are we going to do about them? Just close the living room off?"
"That won't work." She said absentmindedly, still staring at the balloons. "You know what your cousins are like. They go anywhere and everywhere, regardless of what anyone says."
"True." I had to agree.
"You know." She said in a thoughtful tone. "They really do just look like helium balloons."
"Yeah, that's why I just assumed you'd gone a bit nuts with the helium at first." I clocked the look on her face. "Oh no, oh no, oh no. Please no. You can't be serious."
"You'd never know unless, you know, you knew." She argued. "And no one will suspect a thing unless they touch them - which they won't as they're all the way on the ceiling."
"Mum, you can not be serious right now."
"We'll just say we wanted everything to be extra special and, like you said earlier, just went a bit nuts with the helium."
"Seriously mum, no. It could be dangerous or toxic - we have no idea what those things are!"
"It'll be fine! We're be here for ages and nothing's happened to us right? We can have the party and then, afterwards when the guests have gone, we'll just give pest control a quick call and they'll come and sort it out. Easy."
"Mum, no!"
Of course, my mother won the argument. She always did. And, in fact, the party mostly went really well. Many of our guests cooed at 'how pretty' the balloon ceiling was. (I swallowed so much bile at those words that much of the delicious looking party food was rendered tasteless to me) and not one of them seemed to suspect they were anything other than what we said they were. Admittedly, neither mum nor myself spent much time in the living room if we could help it - but then as dutiful hosts we didn't have much time to stop anyway.
Luckily for us, the party was almost wound down, the majority of the party guests having departed for their own homes, replete and satisfied, with only the few die hards remaining, when one of my younger cousins scrambled onto the living room furniture (despite having been told many times that this was not allowed) and leaped, grabbing a trailing tendril, clearing hoping to 'play' with one of the helium balloons (despite being told that this was expressively forbidden and that there were plenty of balloons in the conservatory they could play with if they wanted to play with a balloon - apparently their later defense was that they'd already popped all the balloons in the conservatory. Clearly mum and I underestimated their savagery) which tore that balloon and several others loose from the ceiling in a fountain of blood, gore and ooze and made the entire structure(?) organism (?) let out this unearthly, ear shattering wail which smashed any remaining plates or wine glasses in the living room into tiny pieces.
Mum and I ran into the living room to find it looking like a scene from a particularly gory Stephen King novel.
How mum managed to convince the remaining guests that the whole thing was actually an art installation from a local student artist (hence why we said not to touch it - she said in tones of ungodly wrath). Apparently, mum had lent her the space to do her final project in and the artist had agreed to do something that fit in with the party theme - hence, balloons.
'Balloons filled with gore, true,' she'd said to them calmly and then shrugged, 'but, you know artists. Plus, it would have been fine if no one touched it.'
The cousin was duly read the riot act. The guests were tidied up, rounded up and then duly escorted from the building, despite protests of offers to help clean up that were firmly denied.
Once they were gone mum and I returned to the scene of carnage and observed the ceiling. Some balloons were intact, some were badly deflated and the ones that had been tore looked sore like an open wound.
"Poor thing." My mum said sympathetically. "Do you think there's anything we can do?"
"You can't be serious." I halfheartedly protested. That shriek had been completely heart wrenching.
"Of course I am." She said tartly. "It's been the most well behaved guest here."
I actually couldn't argue with that. It really had.
"Maybe we should call a vet?" I said doubtfully. "Or a biologist?"
"A biologist..." She said thoughtfully. "Like your dad? Speaking of where..."
"Helloooo? Anyone home?" A voice called out from the hallway.
"Dad? We're in the living room."
"Sorry," He said cheerfully, his footsteps coming towards us. "I was in a mad rush to get the tape and by the time I clocked the time, it was pretty late. Plus, I forgot the sellotape." As he walked in the living room his face fell.
"What happened?" He cried out. Which we expected. "My baby?" He crooned as he petted the nearest wilted balloon. Which we did not.
"Dear....?" My mum asked in tones of impending doom.
My father wilted as visibly as the balloon. "I just thought, since the experiment went so well in the shed, and it looked so pretty, that, it might, you know, be good for the party? Did you not think it looked pretty?"
He looked at our identical expressions.
"Did I not, ah, remember to tell you about it beforehand?"
This is why dad doesn't get to decorate the house for parties.
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