Innuendo Meets a Baby

This is an old story and many have heard it and two people who might be reading this were there. You know who you are, but you never have to admit it. I'm only doing it for entertainment's sake.

One day two of my friends, a lady and a fellow, and I decided to take a trip to the local science center for a fun day of interactive learning. We were in our 20's, but that is beside the point. We walk in confidently from the heat to lovely air conditioning and to find many children running around and enjoying the activities and educational  fun. In order to disguise ourselves in this new habitat we cleverly decided to run around "acting" excited and touching everything. Eventually, after talking crap to the animatronic dinosaur and forcing little kids to wait as we messed around with puzzles that were more difficult for us than they should have been, we decided to take a break and view one of the hourly science shows.

Today they were going to light things on fire. We liked this. We liked this a lot. There was a pretty big audience, mostly made up of 6-13 year olds. This did not deter us, especially when we saw a mom with her 2 year old in her arms. Although I was intrigued by the adorable baby, I was distracted because the show about fire, and science stuff, was what had my attention. As the show began there was some introductory explanation to what they were going to do and of course as background they asked the audience questions. One of the questions they asked was so easy that the three of us didn't even bother to answer: "What are the different states of matter?

Pfft... easy peasy solid, liquid, and gas. Duh. So we let the kids answer.

After all of the states had been said. The presenter then asked: "But what is the fourth one?"

You said what? Fourth what? You said excuse me what huh?

THERE IS A FOURTH STATE OF MATTER??? WHAT IS LIFE? WHO I AM? GAH!

The kids in the audience were speaking amongst themselves. They can't seem to remember the fourth one. I look at my friends dumbstruck and they look equally confused. I am so distraught by this I can't shut my mouth. I can't even pretend like I'm thinking or I know what the hell she is talking about because my mind has just been blown. Then out of freaking nowhere the 2 year old baby, yes I said it, THE 2 YEAR OLD BABY looks at the presenter from the mother's arms and says, quietly and calmly "Plasma."

No, it's fine baby. I just went through four years of college for kicks.

And the presenter, very effectively looking nonchalant about the amount of strange that just occurred, says: "correct". I looked at my friends for reassurance that they had just heard what I had just heard and that this wasn't a heat stroke delusion, but in fact a baby just went all scientist on us. All I could think of was that I had taken a college level biology class taught by people with doctorates and that baby hadn't even been introduced to Dr. Seuss yet. It wasn't a weird heat dream, it was real and I felt like both crying in a corner and stealing that baby for research at the same time.


After that there was no going back to every day life. In my day Pluto was a planet and there were three states of matter. Too much had just happened at once and my life had changed too dramatically. A baby had just upstaged all of us in a building that we had been to a thousand times before about a subject we have studied for 16 years or more.

After that, the presenter proceeded to set a tornado on fire, but I just couldn't get into it.

Thanks a lot, baby.

An Old Story About An Even Older Story

So I have a little story to share, and you might enjoy this. As I was packing up my things from home a couple weeks ago I was digging around some of my boxes of sentimental crap and I found some of my old school work. Like really old school work.

One of my favorites was what was supposed to be an assignment about the Mayflower. I was supposed to write a journal in the perspective of a settler on the Mayflower's journey to the new world. What actually happened was basically the cliff notes version of any Shakespearean tragedy dramatically condensed, placed in an 8 year-olds somewhat disturbing imagination, and lacking follow through or closure. Additionally, seems that I had no concept of what actually happens on ships.

I will share some highlights of the story now. It's starts out a little slow, but bear with it because it gets... different. Disclaimer: I am staying true to the original spelling and grammar because I think it keeps the integrity of the work (lol... integrity).

My Mayflower Adventures

SEPTEMBER 5th 1627

Hello my name is Gretchen. 
I am from Holland. 
Right know I'm boarding the May-Flower this is going to be really exciting! 

SEPTEMBER 8th 1627

Yesterday I found other kids. They aren't exciting, but they're something. 
On September 6th I found two cats and played with them too; but to be honest, the cats were better than the kids.

SEPTEMBER 16th 1627

My mom got seasick because she was in the room too much. 
She might die!

SEPTEMBER 24th 1627

My mother is doing much better now. 
However, my father had a knife which a strange man stole, 
The man went crazy and cut my father with the knife then jumped over board. 

SEPTEMBER 28th 1627

Father is still in bad condition, but he is still talkitive. 
All the kids are pretty upset about being in the ship still. 
Everything bad seems to have to do with me.

OCTOBER 14th 1627

Today, my mom and dad read the Bible all day and made me read it for five hours since I didn't read it last week. 
I told them I had read this part, but they just told me to read it again.

OCTOBER 22th 1627

I have the fluenza. 
So I can't play anymore and I don't know what's going on. 
 I think I will die.
Life is horrible.

NOVEMBER 1st 1627

My mother has gone crazy. 
She thinks I'm a three-headed dragon and that father is a caramel cake.

*Spoiler alert* we never find out if the mother becomes sane again or if Gretchen is cured from "the fluenza" or if the father ever gets an infection from being sliced open by an unstable settler.

I don't think I should share anymore, but I can tell you that a large segment of the journal was spent talking to/about a cat that Gretchen found on the boat. Eventually the poor girl gets off the craziest ship in existence and lands in the Americas or whatever. But seriously, I'm pretty sure no one else in the 4th grade class had everyone in the story go insane by the end of the journal.

I did get a good grade on the journal, but my teacher wrote this comment at the front of it:

Interesting details about the trip

Very creative

I think she added it as a way of trying to address the absurdity of the story, but I'm glad she could see past the historical inaccuracies to get to the important part which was ummm... the violence? The oppressive nature of religion during that time? The susceptibility to illnesses? The mental instability of the settlers?

In the end it is kind of nice to look back at your own imagination. Although at first when I found it again I was confused and doubtful that I could have ever wrote something like that, it is oddly reassuring now that at some point and in some context I was "very creative" in my own distinctive way.

I think I have said too much already so I will end this, thanks for bearing with a very strange flashback into my life. I'm probably going to take a nap. Everyone stay away from the fluenza ok? That ish is dangerous.