On the one hand, who wouldn’t want to be sitting pretty in a backyard fort with hundreds of water balloons that took only minutes to fill and tied themselves. On the other hand — no, I can’t. There is no downside to a device that allows you to fill 37 balloons with water at one time and spares you the time/pain of tying all those slippery little suckers.

A dad of two (who might not be the smartest person alive per se, because that is a very difficult thing to determine) figured out how to make his children the overlords of all others with his Bunch O Balloons device on Kickstarter. It reached its $10,000 funding goal in under 12 hours, and hit $161,252 total as of this writing.

It seems so simple, it’s one of of those things you’ll be lamenting forever that you didn’t come up with first: Attach the stem of the gadget to your hose and turn on the water to fill the balloons. You then apparently give it just a “gentle shake” over a plastic tub, and pop, wurble gurgle, 37 filled and tied water balloons.

Even if a few break, that’s a lot less work than the old way — if this thing works as demonstrated, which of course, we can’t know at this point.

And if you’re thinking of the impact this surge in water balloon production could have on the environment, the plastic stems are recyclable and the balloons are made from biodegradable material.

Again, they tie themselves. Just don’t let these babies get into the wrong hands — I’m looking at you, kid with the bad attitude who always tries to sabotage the neighbors’ block party — or face certain drenching.

*Thanks for the tip, Jenny!

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