Every now and then I like to come up with a new little Rule for Living. It makes me feel like I'm still learning and growing and becoming. Anyway, this is my most recent rule:
NEVER PLACE YOURSELF IN A POSITION WHERE YOU HAVE TO JUDGE HOW WELL A GROUP OF SIX JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS CAN REMOVE A PINGPONG BALL FROM A MASON JAR WITHOUT USING THEIR HANDS.OK. I can see already that I have to back up and provide a context.
Here's the deal. While I honor and respect our country's professional scientists as much as the next person, I myself am not exactly Bill Nye the Science Girl. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever admired me for my personal science skills such as counting, computing, measuring and disposing of nuclear waste. The truth is that I am inexact. Like I always say whenever I have to fill out that part about my weight on a driver's license application, "Hey, rounding down works great for me!"
That's why I was surprised when someone from my son's junior high school called and asked if I would please help with the Scientific Olympics. Actually, I wasn't just surprised, I was flattered. Wait a minute, I wasn't just flattered, I was deeply moved that someone thought I and my "rounding down" skills were worthy enough to be involved.
So, anyway, I went to my son's junior high school on the morning of the Scientific Olympics, and I learned what was required of me and the other adult judges. Basically, we were supposed to give the young participants straws, sticks, rubber bands, paper plates, thread spools and masking tape, then see how they could use them to solve specific problems such as fishing pingpong balls out of mason jars taped on tables halfway across the room.
(Actually, a very strange thing happened to me during the science teacher's explanation of what we were supposed to be doing that day. I had this overwhelming urge to take the materials before me and transform them into a whoopee cushion. I can only attribute my momentary lapse in serious scientific purpose to the fact that I was sharing the same air as junior high students.)
Anyway, we judges eventually went to our assigned posts where we evaluated the problem-solving abilities of rotating groups of students. My first few groups were comprised of junior high boys who all behaved very much in the manner I would have predicted:
1. They ran into the library, pushing and shoving each other and also giving each other big noogies.
2. They picked up sticks from the table and began doing drum solos on each other's heads.
3. They slam-dunked each other into the garbage can in the corner.
4. They finally got down to business and more or less solved the problems.
This was in marked contrast to the behavior of the girls who wandered into the library in tight little groups. This is what the girls did:
1. They stood around the table, unfolding their arms.
2. They all simultaneously decided they wanted to go first which caused them to -
3. Get mad at each other for being so pushy about going first, which then motivated them to form alliances and whisper about the girls who were not their allies after which -
4. They took turns getting their feelings hurt and stomping away from the table -
5. Which inspired them to plead with each other to come back to the table because they were really, really sorry even though they weren't being rude on purpose and everybody should have realized that in the first place, duh, which meant that they could -
6. Finally get down to business and more or less solve the problems with exactly the same competence as their male peers.
What interested me about all this was my reaction. After years of feeling kind of bad about not having any sisters or daughters, I have (apparently) turned into an Honorary Guy without realizing it. The truth is that I almost went nuts watching those girls. In fact, what I really wanted to do was pick up my Official Centimeter Stick (a highly scientific tool which allows you to measure stuff in centimeters) and start clubbing them all for expending so much emotional energy over a pingpong ball.
So there you have it, and now I hope you'll please excuse me while I go give someone a noogie.