They Don't Let 30-ish-Year-Olds in the Science Fair

After Buddy's spring concert, there was an announcement. Regarding the third grade science fair.

"Yippee!!! I get to be in a science fair!!!!" I cried out.
Josh's head snapped toward me and his eyes narrowed.

"I mean Buddy. Buddy gets to be in a science fair. Buddy. Yeah."
Josh's eyes stayed narrowed.
I have a history.

Friday, a packet 18 inches thick was sent home with eight million rules and three papers to be signed by parents. The phrase "showcasing the child's work" was printed in bold on several pages.

However, a third-grader can't be left to the wolves entirely, so I started googling. Would you believe in the entire World Wide Web there are only two original science fair ideas? One was an experiment on which type of music most effectively calms cats. The project involved riling a series of cats up with a vacuum cleaner, playing music, and then timing how long it took the cat to stop pacing and meowing with it's hair on end, so it was quite promising. Unfortunately we do not have a series of cats, so it was out of the question. The other was, "which grows faster, hair or fur?" and required the shaving of a patch on the student's head and a patch on the student's Chihuahua. I decided not to pitch this idea to Buddy.

So I sighed and tried brainstorming. Sadly, I tried brainstorming with a nine-year-old whose friend and he did not stop laughing and passing gas until 11:00 the night before.

Po.op.
What do you mean, "po.op."
I want study which dog food makes the most po.op.
No.
Why?
Your teacher will never approve it (notice the deft taking the blame off myself- now that's parenting).
Why?
Because we don't have a way to study po.op output without contracting a variety of viruses.
Pe.e, then.
No.
Urinals.
No.
Toilets.
Ok. What do you want to know about toilets?
(Thinking) Nothing.
Ok, so now what.
Toilet paper.
What about toilet paper?
Which kind is the thickest and sucks up the most pe.e.

Alright. Now we're getting somewhere. At this point, however, I did not realize Buddy had become serious. Several times over the weekend I tried to get him back engaged in brainstorming and several times he said, no, I'm going to do toilet paper.

How about geraniums? How they grow with and without light?
No.
Mold? You could grow mold on bread.
No.
Timing hamsters in a maze?
I can have hamsters!
No.
Oh. Toilet paper.

And so another dream of parental greatness died.

At the dinner table I announced that Buddy had his science fair idea. Again with the narrowed eyes. Josh insisted Buddy recount verbally how he arrived at his idea.

"I said po.op and then pe.e and then urinals and then toilets. I didn't want to know anything about toilets, so I said toilet paper. So we're going to find out if the more expensive toilet paper is thicker and sucks up more pe.e. But don't worry. It'll just be yellow water."

I stuck out my tongue at Josh.