I just had a moment that triggered a few memories that led me to telling you that I _am_ Charlie Brown.  I say this in the sense that while my heart is often in the right place and I try, I often just fail in an epic manner.  I need to first assure you that the new pants I'm wearing today were washed once, so I'm a bit perplexed at this finding... but none the less:  I went to the restroom and found a "QC OK 96" sticker stuck to my inner thigh.  At least I passed quality control.  *rolls eyes*  I find it entertaining that a large portion of my work-a-day life is focused on quality simply because that simply doesn't seem to be the standard when I look back over my life, and why that darn sticker ended up being so darn funny to me.
 
As such, the sticker and its connotation led me to think about elementary school science projects.  What an awesome leap, right?  I suppose it also helped that the whole humidifier irritation is still on my mind and I've been pondering how much a whole-house humidifier would be cost and maintenance wise.
 
Ok, I'm loosing focus of the story I want to tell, but at least you're seeing the components that are whirling around in my head together that led to the mash up thought of science projects.  You see, I have distinct memories of two projects at good ol' Washington and Jefferson (W&J) elementary.  If memory serves they were in the same year, and given the classroom scene etched in my memory, both my first year there (2nd grade).  The amusing part is this is my first year in the "gifted" program, so here I am already the dumb one in the sea of knowledge... then the science debacles.
 
First project:  We all know that low humidity in the winter makes you shock the crap out of yourself all too often.  Heaven knows needing to restart my DSL modem lately has not been pleasant, nor has turning on my bedroom light.  If you have low humidity, a vellux blanket (That's right I was classy then, I'm classy now, but at least my current one isn't mustardy yellow.  There is nothing better than a sweet vellux blankie at night.  Don't judge me.), and the right fabric of nightgown you can make sparks at night!  Hey, I'd still find that entertaining, not just at 7 years old.  So, this was what my project was about.  I even brought the awesome vellux and dinosaur night shirt to school to demonstrate static electricity.  Now a scientist well researched on their topic of static electricity would know that was only possible due to the very low humidity and any scientist would know that their environment would need to be meticulously maintained if
they expected the same results from their experiment.  Yeah, not this scientist.  Failure to spark - so kudos to W&J for keeping an appropriately humidified environment.
 
Note:  The dinosaur night shirt is the one that was subsequently cut off of me one morning late in the school year because I had sunburned myself so terribly that I couldn't lift my arms up high enough to take it off in the morning.  Fact!
 
Second Project:  All I recall is that I was aiming for some part of the solar system.  I had my cardboard box turned to its side, with my planets sticking up on the inside, and I had put little holes in the back of the box, where I pushed through each little light from a strand of Christmas lights to be the stars in my universe.  Worked great at home.  Plug it in at school and nothing.  I'm sure there was one bulb somewhere in the strand that was telling me I was number 1 *ahem* (you see folks, old Christmas lights were wired in series, not parallel, so if one light burned out the whole strand went out)
 
Ok, were either of these epic fails?  You might not think so, but ask the 7 year old me horrified in front of my class.  Well, at least I've identified where it all started downhill, right?  (Note I'm laughing while typing that.)