My Solar System Projects Include Pluto

I’m trying to figure out what I did to make our elementary school hate me. I must have wronged them in some way and they are getting back at me. That’s the only logical explanation for why they would make me do the third grade projects all over again.

This is our second year in a row with a third-grader. (I know what you’re thinking, but no, it’s not the same kid. Son Number One and Two just happen to only be a year apart in school.) Imagine my surprise when Son Number Two came home last week and announced that he had to do a solar system project.

“I already did that last year,” I said.

“Huh?” he muttered.

“All third-graders do it,” my wife said.

“You mean I have to do the same project three times!?” I asked.

“The kids are supposed to do the project, honey,” my wife answered, probably thinking she was helping.

“Are you kidding me? The kids don’t do the project. I do. I need to call the school”

“Don’t you dare,” she said.

“Huh?” muttered Son Number Two.

I thought elementary school was for kids. When we got married we talked to other people, including our parents, about the fact that we wanted to have kids, and not one of them warned me that elementary school was going to involve me so much. The endless school fundraisers are one thing, but “student projects” take things to a whole new level. The school may as well just call me up and revise my to-do list for me. Who do they think they are, my wife?

“Good morning, this is the school calling. We know you’ve got a busy week, but we’re going to need to add a few things to your plate. We’re going to need you to change the oil in both your cars. What’s that? No, not at Jiffy Lube. We’re going to need you to climb under there and do it yourself. Oh, and we also need you to paint your house, too. Yes, inside and out. And it all needs to be done by this Friday. Thanks!”

The paperwork that came home with Son Number Two regarding the solar system project was laughable. It kept referring to “the student” working on the project, and “the student’s” deadlines, etc.

Do they have any idea what a solar system mobile would look like if “the student” was solely responsible for the project? I’ll tell you, because I’ve seen it. It would look like five irregular, circle-like shapes cut from a single piece of construction paper, labeled in pencil. The planet names would all have been poorly erased and re-written two or three times, but still spelled wrong, and there would only be five of them because the student couldn’t remember the other four, so they just left them out. The abbreviated solar system planets would all be duct taped to the side of the kitchen counter, out of order, and without a sun, so not only would the student be unable to deliver the project to school without a power saw, a crowbar, and a moving van, but life on “erth” would have already been eradicated by the eternal sunless frozen winter.

Of course I have to help, and in this case, “help” is defined as “doing all the stuff.” I’m not doing everything because I’m some kind of overprotective, perfectionist parent who wants everything their child produces to be flawless. Nothing could be further from the truth. I don’t really care if erth is yellow and the same size as both mercery and Jupter. I’m simply trying to keep Son Number Two from damaging himself and my house, and not necessarily in that order.

Did I let my son cut the sides off a cardboard box with a razor blade? No. I think he’ll want to have all ten fingers for as long as possible.

Did I let him spray paint the cardboard box black? No. I like my cars and my house to be monochrome, without black accent stripes.

Did I let him drive himself down to Staples to find Styrofoam balls? No. My wife wouldn’t let me.

Did I let him paint the Styrofoam balls unsupervised? No. See spray paint reasoning above.

Did I let him clean up the paint and brushes? No. General paint issues already stated.

Did I let him Google “Uranus” on his own? No. I don’t have extra money for therapy.

About the only thing he did on his own was draw the stars on the inside of the black box. And I even “needed” to be a technical advisor on that so the universe looked properly infinite and didn’t end abruptly like a Hollywood movie set.

When I was done “helping” him hang the planets in the infinite shoe box-sized universe, I told him it was time to make the labels. When we came to Pluto, he protested.

“That’s not one of them, Dad. Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.”

This is my project, Son, and I’m including Pluto. Pluto was a planet when I was a kid, and I’m not willing to ignore it just because some yahoos in The Hague (as if that’s even a real place) decided it wasn’t.

I don’t really care what your elementary school says. If they’re going to make me build solar systems every year, I’m going to include Pluto. When NASA says it’s not a planet, then I’ll let it go.

If your teacher wants to take off points for including it, that’s fine with me. I already graduated third grade.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2014 Marc Schmatjen

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The Leprechaun Trap

Last night I found myself in one of the classic dad-with-elementary-school-kids situations. My wife looked at me lovingly over the dinner table and said, “Honey, after dinner you need to help your son build a leprechaun trap for school. It’s due tomorrow.”

“It’s due tomorrow?!? Why am I just hearing about it now?”

“You’re not. I told you about it twice last week, and again two days ago. Would you like me to tell you the exact times, dates and locations when I told you, or exactly what you said each time I told you?”

“So, a leprechaun trap, huh son? I have some great ideas of what we’re going to build tonight!”

Luckily for me, I am not only trained as a mechanical engineer, but I also happened to have a good sized piece of cardboard, some metal coat hangers, and a roll of duct tape in my garage. Also luckily for me, I was an expert trapper in my youth. I never actually trapped anything, per se, but I did own one heck of a cool galvanized steel, two-door, tray-triggered animal trap when I was a kid.

I saved my money and bought it from a mail-order trap manufacturer whose ad I had been studying for months in the back of Outdoor Life magazine. It was easily the coolest thing I had ever purchased, and at ten years old, I had visions of wearing a coon-skin cap and running a lucrative trap line business, with a large knife on my hip and a rifle over my shoulder, just in case. As it turns out, the fields behind our house weren’t exactly a trapper’s paradise, and my mom wouldn’t let me walk around town with a rifle, so eventually the trap was retired to the rafters in the garage and my career aspirations took a new path. Looking back on it, I’m glad I never trapped anything, because it would most likely have been a skunk.

Anyway, I remembered exactly how the trap door mechanism worked on my old trap, and it was perfect for a leprechaun trap that needed to be built in a hurry, on (arguably) short-notice. Off to the garage we went after dinner, to start the often challenging, yet always rewarding process of building something with a 5-five-year-old. Being a semi-seasoned father of three boys, I was prepared for the logistical challenges ahead involving overanxious young helpers and sharp cutting implements. I was totally unprepared for, however, all the questions about leprechauns.

Apparently, St. Patrick’s Day is a pretty major holiday at the elementary school level, and apparently the existence of leprechauns is the overriding theme. Apparently, this time of year, preschools and elementary schools are overrun by mischievous leprechauns, who apparently invade the classrooms at nighttime, in search of gold and snacks. It is apparently the duty of every God-fearing American boy and girl, ages three through eight, to help attempt to trap these Irish varmint-sized marauders, and take their gold.  

“Dad, there must be lots of different kinds of leprechauns, right?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because there are so many of them.”

“Why do you think there are so many of them?”

“Because there are a lot of schools, and they come to all the schools, right?”

“Sure they do.”

“Why do they come to schools, dad?”

“Pass me that blow torch, son. Have I ever shown you how to weld?”

I’m still trying to keep my story straight on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. It’s hard enough to explain how and why they all know to come to your house, but now I have to try and explain why leprechauns sneak around, also?

“Once there was green leprechaun pee in the toilet at the pre-school. How did he use the toilet if they’re so small? What are they looking for at the schools? Why do they like glitter? What do leprechauns eat? What do we do with them if we catch one in the trap?”

How am I supposed to know? This is (arguably) the first time I’m hearing about this. I’m just trying to get through the already challenging task of building a working scale model of a trigger-door animal trap using cardboard and coat hangers, and now I’m fielding a bunch of questions and trying not to contradict the unknown-to-me answers that the teacher may or may not have already given.

To add an extra layer of difficulty, my design is being constantly monitored by a little kid who believes that his trap will actually need to snare and contain a small magical Irish elf, so I am needing to bend to some design constraints that wouldn’t otherwise be a concern, such as, not putting any of the connecting duct tape on the inside of the trap because, “the leprechaun would just tear it off and escape.”

On top of the mechanical, mental and mythical challenges the project presented, the other two boys added their own level of difficulty. As Son Number Two sat at the workbench and “helped” me, Sons Number One and Three tore around the garage playing Star Wars. So, as I tried to put the trap together and carefully answer and/or evade the leprechaun inquiries, I was constantly being hit in the legs with plastic light sabers and repeatedly shot with Nerf bullets. The evening reminded me of what astronaut training must be like. Doing complicated math problems while pulling four G’s in a spinning chair and getting Ping-Pong balls and jets of hot steam shot at you, just to see how you react to the chaos.

I am happy to report that I survived the space training exercise, and ended up with a pretty awesome leprechaun trap for my son. We couldn’t reproduce my old animal trap’s food tray door trigger, so we went with the tried-and-true “stick propping up the door” trick. 

“So, when he moves the stick, the door will fall, this latch will swing down into place to keep the door shut, and bam! You’ve got a leprechaun in your trap.”

“Why will he move the stick, dad?”

Why will he move the stick? It was my last mental exercise of the night. Why would he move the stick? The “stick” happened to be a piece of a Home Depot paint stir stick, so it was flat and had some room to write on it. A green Sharpie solved my last design hurdle of the evening.

“Dear Mr. Leprechaun, move this stick to get treats.”

That was perfectly logical in the mind of the five-year-old leprechaun hunter, and he went to bed satisfied that he had the best trap ever. I went to bed about three minutes after he did, completely mentally exhausted.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2012 Marc Schmatjen

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