October 9, 2000
DOWN HOME:
Humpty-Dumpty exercise leaves dad with eggy face
___Sometimes, the laws of physics prevail, no matter how much you try to resist them.
___Lindsay and I learned this the hard way. Fortunately, it was harder on the eggs than it was on us.
___Her physics teacher assigned the Humpty-Dumpty of all homework projects: We weresupposed to toss an egg off the top of the bleachers at the football stadium and make it land in a one-meter square. Without breaking.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___Her teacher laid out some basic groundrules: No parachutes. No "food products." (Peanut butter, the wonder food, apparently has excellent shock-absorbing qualities.) And the entire package isn't supposed to weigh more than 150 grams.
___Unfortunately, nothing in Lindsay's homework or textbook gave us any clue about how to encase an egg so it won't break when dropped on concrete from 30 feet.
___Still, our experiment proved you can have a great time while learning practically nothing.
___We took two eggs and two packages to the football stadium on our first egg-safety sojourn.
___We wrapped one egg in two large blocks of foam. The sound it made when it splatted told me I didn't even need to see the yolk dripping from the foam seams to know it was a clunker.
___Next fell another egg inserted into a toilet-paper roll stuffed with foam and encased in bubble wrap. The yolk stayed intact, but the shell cracked to smithereens.
___Our failure sent us back to the house, drawing board and refrigerator. We returned with a lovely green package, made from that dense styrofoam florists use for flower arranging. Flowers are tougher than eggs.
___We also tried a variation on the toilet-paper roll, packing an egg in foam in a cut-down plastic bottle and wrapping it in bubble wrap, weighted with two quarters on the bottom to make it land on target. The result was such a mess we sacrificed the quarters rather than dig through the egg-foam yuck.
___Disarmed by failure and closing darkness, we went home and improvised on our least-unsuccessful egg bomb. The next morning, Lindsay went off to school with a super-wrapped, foam-lined toilet-paper roll. I'd like to tell you we fried that egg for breakfast the following morning, but unfortunately, it coated the insides of the toilet-paper roll.
___As Lindsay repeatedly climbed the steps of the bleachers and I waited on raining-eggs below, I thought about how much this experiment is like parenthood. For 18 years, you wrap your children in love and prayers and the ways of the Lord. You do everything you can to protect them from the bumps and bounces of life, but eventually you have to let them go.
___I sure hope I'm a better daddy than physicist.
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