How Ya Gonna Dupe 'Em, Down In the Field House, After They've Seen the Light?

You might think a science fair is all fun and Reverse Jenga. But it's not.

Most of the work is done before the big day, in preparing your entrants on how to prepare a project. How to sort out variables, and establish controls, perhaps a constant, and how to explain the procedure to the judges. The big day itself is a lot of waiting for the final result. The entrants sit down on the floor of the junior college field house to await their turn. IF they are smart, and grab a chair as soon as they've checked in. Chairs are at a premium, you know. This fair is a big deal. Standing room only, because there are more entrants than chairs. One would think that the junior college owned those chairs. But they do not. They rent them for the event.

The sponsors are banned from the floor when judging starts. We sit around shooting the bull until we are called behind the bleachers. Uh huh. The glamorous life of a science teacher is revealed. One side of that field house has the bleachers folded up, so there's a room in behind, with windows to the outside, and cracks in the metal bleachers to peep out onto the fair. Usually, there's a deafening din that permeates every corner of the facility. But this year, the participants were eerily quiet and well-mannered.

As soon as it was announced that there would be a sponsors's meeting behind the bleachers when the judges had cleared out from their breakfast, my colleagues headed over there to wait. I like to stay put, saving seats, so that others can see where we have staked out our territory. There are only so many bags and forms and water bottles you can leave sitting without fear of molestation. Though the kids are on the floor, and the sponsors are in the meeting...parents often show up and put down roots on their own bleacher real estate. Let the record show that our contingent prefers the front row, so as not to be interspersed with kids once the awards ceremony starts.

I kept my eye on the ringleader of this show, and when she headed over to the room behind the bleachers, I followed. We had a wheeled cart loaded with chairs like the participants, except that ours were white, and theirs were brown. The first one I tried had a wobble. I scoped this out before sitting down. "I think I'll try another one. This one doesn't seem sturdy."

"Be careful, Val. They are NOT sturdy. You'll feel like you're going over backwards."

I sat down gingerly on my second choice. Then I tried not to move. These folding chairs were plastic. They did not have four legs like a regular metal folding chair, but rather two U-shaped legs, one in front, one in back. Nor did they have a nice roomy seat like a metal folding chair. They had a seat like a postage stamp. I felt like an elephant balancing my his buttocks on the end of a baseball bat. And they were low. Val is not good at being seated or rising from kindergarten-chair-height furniture. It seemed that everything in that building is vertically challenged. The chairs, the bleachers, the toilets. Not Val's cup of tea. In her very own classroom, she has her semi-comfortable rolly chair jacked to its top height. Substitutes, beware.

We waited for the meeting to start. The ringleader took off to de-escalate a crisis, but just before zooming out the door, she announced, "The fair next year will be on the equivalent Friday of this year's fair. Oh, and the vendor made a mistake with coffee cups the college ordered to commemorate its anniversary, so you can have a free cup." We remained. Signed our name for a free T-shirt. Took extra programs that were going to be trashed. My colleagues had brought work to do (silly things) and were having connection problems with our network. Two ladies from different schools joined our table. One of them pulled out my abandoned chair and asked, "Is anybody sitting here?"

"No. But I didn't take that chair because it wobbles."

"Be careful when you sit down. You'll feel like you're falling over backwards."

She sat down. "WHEW! I thought I was going over backwards!"

Indeed. We talked shop. Waited. Decided where to order lunch. Waited. Looked down the room at the other tables full of sponsors. Waited. Talked about people we knew in common. Waited. Talked about our testing schedules. Waited. It was torture.

"I feel like I'm being held hostage. I don't think we're having a meeting. She's not coming back."

"Val. We always have a meeting. She asks for our input for next year."

"I don't think she's coming back. I hate to get up, because then I'll have to sit down again. But I can't take this. I'd rather be out there watching the kids on the floor." I got up and looked through the bleacher cracks. "She's not even out there. I think she left the building. I'm going to the bathroom. If I miss anything, let me know." On my trip to the other corner of the field house to use the three-stall claustrophobic bathroom that, along with its identical twin on the other end, served the entire group of judges, sponsors, participants, and spectators...I saw neither hide nor hair of the ringleader.

When I returned to the above-ground dungeon where we were being kept, I asked if I had missed anything.

"No." Said in quadruplicate by my table members.

I sat down slowly, carefully, and painfully, and balanced on my precarious perch. Another fifteen minutes of waiting ensued. "I don't think we're having a meeting. I'm making a break for it. I'm going back to our seats. Those kids are going to be released for lunch in a few minutes, and I'm not giving up my spot on the front row."

Off I went. But I stopped by the table with water, cookies, chips, granola bars, and napkins. I picked up my free cup and tried to get two cookies. All the good ones were gone. The chocolate chips and peanut butter. All that were left were oatmeal raisin. Still. I tried to pick up one for me and one for The Pony. There were short plastic tongs which didn't work. Threatened to break the cookie in half, because it was stuck to the cookie under it. I gave up and grabbed it with my fingers. OH NO! A man walked in the door and saw me! Using my fingers! On cookies that would not come apart. THREE COOKIES came loose. I wrapped a napkin around them and left. I don't know which is the bigger crime, looking uncouth for grabbing cookies with my fingers, or looking like a hog for taking three. What's a Val to do? I guarantee that nobody wanted a cookie after Val's hands had been on it.

So...having escaped from captivity, I sat down in my saved seat and ate a cookie, just as the kids were released for lunch. It was like watching the running of the bulls. My colleagues left to bring back lunch, and ate in the room behind there bleachers, where they remained until the awards.

We never did have that sponsor's meeting.