You're Kidding Right?

"Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage." -Erma Bombeck

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFWHbRApS3c‎

Ok, so I am pretty darn proud of myself for figuring out how to stick a link on my blog. I don't even know if I did it right. But the fact that I made an attempt is noteworthy. If it doesn't work, I'm sure you all know how to do your own google search.

Why this link, you ask? I'll tell you why. Because I picked Sabrina up from school yesterday, and she informed me that she had been assigned to create a Rube Goldberg machine out of household materials and that it was due on Monday. WHO THE CRAP IS RUBE GOLDBERG? I began to grumble inside. No, I grumbled out loud, nice and loud. The teacher realizes that there are only 5 school days left right? She understands that parents have had it with school projects right? She realizes that had such a project been assigned two months ago, and had she given us a week or two to work on it, my complaints would have been minimal, but the fact that she assigned it on this, the last week of school, makes me want to hunt this woman down and give her a piece of my mind?

The pathetic handout Sabrina was handed by her teacher offered few clues as to what a Rube Goldberg machine is. My initial response was, "Just take your project from your exploring technology class. That should do the job." This is an example of poor parenting, you say? Perhaps. Aren't you just teaching your child how to "work the system", you ask? It's quite possible that that is exactly what I'm doing. I think that Sabrina's hydraulic crane is quite the contraption and would fulfill the assignment, sort of. She made the whole thing completely by herself. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Actually, it was Neil's idea. Brilliant! But Sabrina insisted that the crane was not what the teacher was looking for.

What exactly did the teacher want us to concoct in one weekend? We turned to the Google Machine for answers, and we found the above video. I started to chuckle, then laugh, pretty soon hideous guffaws came from the corner of the room as I watched. It wasn't your jolly laugh. It was more like a crazed lunatic laugh. You know, something you might hear from that woman in the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" or perhaps from a character in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

I hope you enjoyed the video. As you can see, it should be a simple project really. It shouldn't take more than 30 hours and 43 takes to get it right. It's a good thing I'm not tired from a long school year or anything, because this should just be fun. Oh, and the teacher is providing the bell. She's awfully generous. Wouldn't want to overburden the parents or anything. Did I mention that the same child has been assigned a report in English class on a poet that I have never heard of and can't be found in any of my college literature books? It's due three days before the last day of school. But it's ok. There's plenty of time. It should be fun, real fun. Yes, that's laughing you hear.