The Plague of the School Science Fair

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My son's favorite experiment was "Which Jokes Are Most Likely to Make My Brother Laugh so Hard at the Dinner Table that Water Spurts Out His Nose?"

Last week I asked my husband if we could go out to dinner, just the two of
us.

"Are you crazy?" he said. "Don’t you realize the school science fair is
this Thursday night?"

He was unable to look at me while he answered, because he was busy gluing a map of Micronesia to one of our son’s project display boards. This was a very intricate undertaking, as Micronesia is comprised of approximately 4,000 islands, some of them rather tiny.

Like tax season and television "sweeps" week, the school science fair is
an annual plague. The day I had proposed going out to dinner, I had run
around town like a maniac hunting for a place that could laminate 4,000
islands of Micronesia in a hurry, not to mention scavenging for other
materials that some of our kids requested for their projects, including
eye of newt. By evening, I managed to block the dreaded topic from my mind
just long enough to have asked this absurd question. Of course my husband
and I wouldn’t have a minute to spare until we, with some minimal guidance
from our children, overcame the hurdle of the school science fair.

How many more houseplants must suffer as kids lock them in a dark closet for a week?

One has to wonder, how many more generations of kids are going to compare
Wisk and Tide detergents in their ability to get pomegranate stains out
from a white school shirt? How many more houseplants must suffer as kids
lock them in a dark closet for a week, only to discover the plants are
screaming in plant language, "Let there be light!" How many times must I
as a parent relive the annual bad dream that is science fair?

I pondered these weighty issues while my husband slaved away on the
display board, showing the fascinating weather patterns over Micronesia.
(These range from "balmy" to "really sunny.") All this on behalf of a
child who was too busy reading Harry Potter in the bathroom to come out
and help. Meanwhile, I was negotiating with another son over his ideas
for his own project. I admit, his ideas were strikingly original, and like
any good scientist, this child had performed each experiment many times to
verify the results.

Despite his enthusiasm, I tried to talk him out of an experiment called,
"How Long Can You Not Brush Your Teeth Before Your Gums Bleed All Over
Your Shirt?" (based on his most recent visits to the dentist); "How Long
Can the Hamster Spin On His Wheel While On a Calorie-Restricted Diet?," an
accidental experiment with tragic conclusions; "How Long Can Old Cream
Cheese Sandwiches Live Behind the Bed Before the Mold Seeps Throughout the
House, Thus Requiring Major Renovations That Need Permits?," and his
personal favorite, "Which Jokes Are Most Likely to Make My Brother Laugh
so Hard at the Dinner Table that Water Spurts Out His Nose?" For this one,
he had even made a bar graph showing differing results based on
knock-knock jokes, jokes taken from Popsicle sticks, and Marx Brothers routines.

One might hypothesize that these ideas were of only questionable benefit
to the World of Science. However, they did capture my son’s imagination
and spark his interest in further home-based experimentation. When we had
reached a deadlock, I coerced him into doing a less personally revealing
experiment. This project, "Will Baseballs Still Bounce After Being Boiled
for Nine Hours?" was taken from a real book in a real library. I kept my
son’s baseball on a low boil in my hot water urn all day. After hours of
anticipation, my son and I discovered two things: First, you will ruin
your baseball after boiling it for nine hours. Second, you will also ruin
your hot water urn, since it now smells permanently of baseball. (Perhaps
I could try dabbing a little Wisk or Tide detergent into it, to see if I
could recapture that fresh, non-baseball scent.)

Utterly dismayed by these boring results, my son forged ahead with his bar
graph charting the most effective jokes to induce hilarity-based nasal
sprays at the dinner table. The Science Fair judges awarded him first
place for originality. I hope my husband gets over the disappointment
soon.

Judy Gruen is the author of "Till We Eat
Again: Confessions of a Diet Dropout," (Champion Press). Subscribe to her
regular humor column at www.judygruen.com.

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