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Laura on Life
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Sports is not a big thing in our family. In fact, we must have about 20 different sports stations that we can get on our "idiot box" (television), but we hardly ever watch any of them. If you were to sneak a peek into our living room on any given day, you would be more likely to see my family glued to the Science Channel or Discovery Kids; which, I suppose, is more educational. But this fascination with science and nature has some interesting manifestations at my house.
My husband likes gadgets. However, because of the cost of new technology, he is just as likely to try to make something himself as to go out and buy it. So hiding in our basement are the skeletal remains of a dozen half-built robots that have been made out of old vacuum cleaner parts, stroller wheels, toasters and any other appliance that had the misfortune to die on his watch. None of them actually work, but he swears that someday he'll have one finished. When I ask him what it will do, he tells me excitedly that they will pick up things and move around the house like a pet. I, of course, am not impressed. If he had told me that those robots would wash and dry my clothes, then fold them and put them away, I would have organized a charitable foundation and solicited donations. But who needs another pet?
I have one son who has experiments all over his room. He's growing plants with no soil jus wadded up yarn soaked in water. He's got a biosphere that is still living that he started last year. And if I ever need a battery, all I have to do is go to his room. He's got about 20 assorted sizes of batteries that have wires scotch-taped to them. You would think that a person would only need one battery with wires for any given experiment, but not him. Apparently, the process of experimentation involves using several different kinds of batteries and several different kinds of wires. I suspect that one day I will find out where the wires came from, as well. I just pray that none of them was the wire that keeps our refrigerator running or was something really important from the inside of my laptop. Something tells me that he will develop a tendency to hoard broken toasters as well.
Throughout the years, because of my family's remarkable propensity for experimentation, I have been exposed to the most interesting snacks that they have prepared. They expect you to eat them, but they won't tell you what the "secret ingredients" are. It truly is amazing that I am still alive today. I have had cookies that fizzed in my mouth, sliced apples with red foam on them, and, of course, the ever-popular green eggs and ham. To be fair, I must say that some of the snacks I received were rather benign and would have made me happy had I not been on a low-carb diet. Things like just the marshmallow hearts from their breakfast cereal. These are best served before milk is added to the bowl. That way you can tell whether the hearts had already been chosen for consumption before the child thought to present them to you. In case anyone wants to know, there are an average of 14 pink heart marshmallows in a bowl of Lucky Charms.
The fallout from their experiments and inventions is evident outside the house as well. There are boards that bear the holes and dents of hundreds of failed attempts at pounding a nail into it. There are paper plates with borax and water sitting outside doors in an attempt to exterminate bugs. There are bits and pieces of rocks that were smashed to smithereens in an attempt to see what was inside them.
I generally have no real problem with all this experimenting. In fact, some of them, like the borax thing, actually work. The challenge would be trying to explain this bizarre behavior to your average visitor. I'd be afraid that they would be offered some ghastly experimental snack from my child's vivid imagination. Consequently, we don't get many visitors.
Laura Snyder may be reached at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or check her website www.lauraonlife.com for archived columns
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