The Smallest Loser

When you’re a kid in Houston, Texas there are two school events that garner a lot of attention: The Rodeo Art Contest and the Science Fair. The rodeo was important because, let’s face it, even though it’s a big city we’re all basically hicks. The science fair was important because NASA was just down the street.

How did I rank in both events? Big-time loser. I couldn’t draw and not only was I not good at science, I didn’t care about it. Still don’t. Like yesterday on Oprah she had the guy from How Stuff Works explain how email works, how the TV works and how the phone works. I didn’t care. I don’t wanna know how stuff works. I just want it to work.

So every year for Rodeo Art I drew the same thing: a headshot of a cow. Not his body, just his face with some antlers. So I guess it was more of a longhorn. I did change up the background though. Some years it was blue, one year it was striped yellow and orange. I think before I got into the cow’s head I did the typical ranch scene in which the sky stops about an inch down from the top of the page. All the Rodeo Art winners knew to color their sky down to the grass. That seemed weird. I’m looking outside right now and the sky isn’t touching the grass. Damn hicks.

For the science fair I was at a real disadvantage. Unlike 80% of the kids in my school, my parents didn’t work at NASA. Therefore they couldn’t do my science project for me. I wasn’t going to be the kid with the volcano. Now all you have to do to have a decent science project is think of a question like “Do bananas rot faster in the bag or out of the bag?” and then state your hypothesis: “I believe bananas rot faster in the bag.”

This was too complicated for me.

Instead for my science project in first grade I decided to go around my yard and collect leaves. I then took four of them, taped them on the standard white poster board (which had to be glued to the standard-issue science fair folding peg board) and named them. I guess maybe my non-NASA-engineer parents were at least able to tell me the types of trees the leaves came from. Then I wrote at the top of the poster board in my very best handwriting…

DIFFERENT LEAVES

That’s it. I didn’t explain the leaves. I didn’t ask a question and I sure as hell didn’t have a hypothesis. I lost. I lost every year. I did go to the city-wide science fair once when my friend Emily Le (who eventually went to M.I.T.) won top honors for her project called “Emulsion Stability.” I clapped for my friend (whose dad DID work for NASA and even had that bumper sticker everyone in that area has that says “Space IS our future”) but I didn’t know what “Emulsion Stability” meant. I still don’t.

And that’s why my poor kids will carry on the tradition of never winning a science fair. And never winning the rodeo art contest. Well maybe they’ll be super-athletic. Yeah, right. And the sky touches the grass.

Hey, little girl, congratulations on winning the science fair! Why isn't your dad here to help you celebrate?

"Daddy's vewry tiwerd from staying up all night to make my vol...vol...carnio? What's this thing called again? Oh, who cares? I won! Can't wait for Rodeo Art!"