Simple Machines

Homework is one of those butt-pains in life. It's like laundry or vacuuming - it's bearable if you can pay someone else to do it. Otherwise, all it takes is a little concentration and you'd be done with it in no time. For our second-grader, a little concentration is like saying, all you need is a Masters in quantum physics. Concentrate, according to him, is orange juice.

But he has his moments. From his Ziploc baggie of books he borrowed from school, we read a non-fiction book called "Simple Machines." It was about, well, simple machines.

"Some need fuel."

"Others electricity."

Still others required the dreadful, inefficient power of man!

Thank God I had three cups of green tea because I was falling asleep. Before you do, let me cut to the chase. The simple machines (as in the title) the information went into were pulleys, wedges and inclined planes.

Here, I pictured my friend Swan singing Beethoven's Fifth with the words "We're Not Im-pressed." Try it - you won't be able to hear the song without the lyrics next time.

Anyway - pulley's. I asked Zuki if he knew what a pulley was.

"Sure. It's underwear."

Under...wear? What's he taking...flashcard cues from his brother?

"No, silly - that's Pull Ups."

He laughed like it was a common mistake. Reminded me of that scene in "Dumb and Dumber," when Jim Carrey thought Samsonite was the name of the suitcase's owner. Man, I was WAY off!

Moving right along. The book went into wheels - you know, the best thing to come along since sliced bread? Well, if you attach a couple of wheels to an axle, you can make a cart! Who knew?

"I know what an axle is," Zuki said.

"You - you do...?" I asked skeptically.

"It's when you go-" Here he proceeded to inhale and exhale dramatically.

How he figures that wheels can be attached to breath is just too scary to think about.

Okay, last one. Wedge according to the Air Head Zuki: "It's when someone pulls your pants up and it goes "erk"(car break sound effect) in your butt."

"That's a wedgie - this is a wedge."

"Yeah, but it still goes up your butt, right?"

You know...I didn't even bother to answer that one.

Homework

My five-year-old came home with an assignment on Friday: for Women's History Month he must read about a famous woman, write two sentences about her achievements and paste a picture from a magazine or whatever.

The "suggestions" listed the obvious, Amelia Earhart and Indira Ghandi but I can't believe the list was topped off with Oprah. I suppose that's where the suggestion to find a picture of our subject in a magazine comes from because I haven't seen Amelia or Indira in the news lately.

At first, I thought of all the women I knew that made history. For me personally, a few came to mind: Evita Peron for having a musical made after her, Imelda Marcos for all those fucking shoes and Madonna for just being so annoying. But I don't think the teacher would have appreciated my picks. 


Strapped for time, I asked Grammy if she'd stop by the library on the way back from the dollar store and see what biography she could find. It was quite a gamble because the Sunnyside Library has a tendency to not have any book you're looking for. Turned out luck was on our side -- Grammy came back with a children's book on Susan B. Anthony.

B. Anthony, as my boys like to call her, would have never crossed my mind. I know the name only because she was on the hopeless one dollar coin that everybody thought was a quarter, hardly a commemoration for a woman who had done so much. Honestly, I only found out just how much she changed history as a result of reading the biography with my kid. Fighting for a woman's right to vote, helping the slaves escape north to freedom -- I thought to myself, this chick's alright.

I should have foreseen that my five-year-old would get upset that she had died fourteen years before a woman's right to vote was enacted. He was rather upset about Charlotte dying in Charlotte's Web even though Wilbur moved on like Paul McCartney did after Linda Whats-her-face. But in truth, I didn't know she didn't get to see the fruits of her labor.

The little guy finally felt better after I explained that America is a better place thanks to B. Anthony, even though she had not been alive to see it. She wasn't the first and she certainly wouldn't be the last to make sacrifices for reform - I just can't think of anybody who is doing that right now, other than the average Joe's they write about in Reader's Digest.

When we finished the book, I asked my son to think of two sentences about B. Anthony to write in his report. The first was easy, she was helping women to vote.

"Okay, what else did she do?" I asked

He thought hard for a moment. "She got old," he said.

The problem was he was right -- she did get old and that does answer the question. But I pressed on searching for an answer until finally he remembered that small skit she had helping the slaves find their freedom. This was how his report read:

"Susan B. Anthony wus halping wmn to vot. She halpt slavz to run uway."

They are encouraged to sound and spell the words out on their own - thus the cacophony in spelling. Then again, his daddy don't do much better.