THE GREATEST SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT THAT NEVER WAS!

I got another call from the school yesterday.  Great, what a wonderful way to start the day!  But this time, for once, it was a GOOD call.  It was from Rocky's teacher informing me that I had been picked from the list of volunteer parents to be a chaparone for the upcoming field trip.  I am ecstatic!  Rocky is ecstatic!  The teacher is probably ignorant.  She has probably not heard of the Greatest Science Fair Project that never was!  But there are still teachers at that school who remember.......

It was probably our first year here, and my oldest son had been caught chewing bubble gum in the house, which was and still is a big 'no-no'.  He immediately swallowed the evidence to which I scolded... 'Never swallow your bubblegum!  If you do and then you fart, you will blow a bubble out of your butt and make a mess in your britches!'  Satisfied with my creative reasoning, I sent him to his room to contemplate his crime, and that was that... or so I thought.

What I didn't know was that I had just planted the seed for the biggest playground experiement in the history of the school.  The problem:  Can you fart a bubble from your butt after swallowing bubblegum?  Materials:  bubble gum, and a bean burrito.  Hypothesis:  Yes, if you eat the burrito the night before and the gum reaches the exit point before the vaporized burrito.  Conclusion:  inconclusive, more tests needed.

These tests have been going on for over 10 years now.  The idea circulates the schoolyard like an urban myth on the internet.  My youngest daughter came home one day to inform me that according to her tests the statement was incorrect.  I made that comment before she was even born, and its still out there!

And now her teacher wants me to be the fieldtrip chaparone!  I'm sure some of the older teachers tried to convince her to choose someone else, someone who didn't think that a 2 second belch was a 'good one!', or that shooting a snot-rocket without getting it on your face was a talent, someone who didn't think the best way to get rid of peas was to flick them across the table...  someone who didn't snort koolade to get colored boogers, someone who didn't admire her son's confiscated foil Xwing Fighters that were made in class instead of doing his assignments, someone who didn't plant ridiculous ideas in young, impressionable heads that cause them to wonder... can you really fart a bubble if you swallow bubblegum? 

Okay, the teacher probably was desperate.  I'm sure nobody else volunteered and I was her last and only choice, but thats okay...  Look out people, I'm going to the ball game, and I'm a CHAPARONE!