She Blinded Me With Science

In all my years at FHS and those that followed, I never attended a science fair, but all that changed on Saturday when C and I brought his raisons-bobbing-in-a-glass-of-soda experiment into the field house (which looks suspiciously unchanged despite years of renovations).
I was hoping to run into a former science teacher or two so they might know that even though I was a hopeless science loser, my son isn't. Alas they must all be doddering about at some retirement community sputtering random science questions like, "can anyone tell me why the atoms in this scrunched up paper don't pass directly through the atoms in that wall?" and never again having to hear the stoner in the back of the class ask, every time a new element is introduced, "can you smoke it?"
At my house we don't drink soda so buying some for our experiment was an experience in and of itself. I realized that you can hardly find 12oz sodas sold individually at convenience stores. Apparently it's more "convenient" to sell 18oz cans. One afternoon I was in line at the North Falmouth Superette with one can of Coke, one can of Pepsi, and one can of Dr. Pepper. The mother and daughter in line in front of me were each buying a bottled water. I felt like the worst bad example. I might as well have been buying three cartons of cigarettes. I tried to save some moral ground by refusing a plastic bag and carrying my sugary booty to the car myself. I resisted the urge to announce to the cashier, "it's for a science experiment."
Surely they've heard that one before.

song: She Blinded Me With Science • artist: Thomas Dolby