Weird Science

There was a really neat accidental experiment done in the Pacific Ocean a few years ago. A cargo container fell off a ship and spilled thousands of bath toys into the water. They've been washing up on shorelines from Mexico to Alaska ever since, and someone got the idea that you could map the oceanic currents by plotting where all the toys wound up.

I don't know who came up with that, but I suspect they have young children.

Last week, I started to notice some Beanie Babies popping up around the house. We have a giant box of them that we got from my sister, who used to be a collector. They have all their ear tags nicely preserved and are in pristine condition. She didn't have room for them in her house, so they came out to live with us. I had dug through the other week to see if we had a camel, since Jonathan was learning about camels for school. We did, of course - we seem to have one of everything - but I wound up putting it back in the box and latching the lid. The box is still in our bedroom because it's darned heavy.

The next day, I found the camel, sans tag, in a pile of Jonathan's toys. I thought Chris must have figured it would help with his school project. However, the next night at bedtime, Jonathan didn't want to snuggle with Liver, Pancreas or Triglyceride. He pulled out a beaver Beanie Baby and asked me what kind of animal it was. This one was also missing a tag.

Hmmmm. Chris usually thinks the kids have too many toys, so I thought it was strange that Jonathan's Beanie Baby collection was expanding so rapidly. We had given him one oversized panda, but that was it. By the time we had finished putting both kids to bed, it was already nine o'clock, and I didn't think of asking him about it. That night I saw the box was still latched shut. I barely saw Jonathan the next morning as I rushed off to work, but I got home early, while he was still napping.

He came downstairs an hour later, cradling the camel, the beaver, and a capuchin monkey. It was time to investigate. I asked him "Jonathan, where are you getting all these animals?" He was happy to tell me. "I got them from the box in your room. First the camel, then. . . this one, and then the monkey!" I said "Didn't they have tags in their ears?" He grinned and said "Yes. I pulled them off! My panda had a really hard tag. So I used my teeth."

Mystery solved.