Clouds

My dad was on the road all the time when I was a kid. I never really understood where he went when he was gone. All I knew is that he was on a plane, presumably flying around somewhere. I thought he was in a plane just flying around our house. I used to stand in the backyard and look up at the sky. I assumed he was on whatever plane happened to fly over the house.

One day I got a great idea, inspired by having to present something at a school show and tell. The last show and tell I had brought in my favorite stuffed animal, a shark from Sea World that didn't have any eyes because my dog had chewed them off. I was ridiculed for weeks afterwards. So I decided that I would bring a cloud in for the show and tell, and that the cloud would be supplied by my dad.

I cleaned out a jar that had contained sweet relish. I believe I even wrote "cloud" on a piece of masking take and stuck it to the jar. I packed the jar in my dad's briefcase. I thought all he would have to do is roll down the window of the plane, stick the jar out, and then put the cap on once the jar filled up with cloud. I imagined a it would be like a soft cotton blanket and was pretty excited at the thought of having my own cloud. I even found a hiding place in our house to make sure one of my siblings didn't let my cloud go during one of our fights.

My dad was pretty pissed when he returned from his trip because I has put a relish jar in his briefcase. He then gave me a lecture about clouds, and I'm sure it was along the lines of:

"A cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth. the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. Thus they appear white, at least from the top."

I didn't believe him, and I was really mad because I had told everyone at school that I was bringing in a cloud. I ended up bringing in a copy of the book Jaws that I had purchased at a garage sale, and was subsequently sent to the principal's office for bringing an "adult" book into school. Sister Mary Paul (see my eighth grade talent show for more on my school) took the book away from me and I never saw it again.

The moral of the story is, if you want to raise a kid who isn't obsessed with great whites, fill a jar full of whatever and tell the kid it's a cloud.