By Donna Hruska

Listen to Donna narrate this story!

Any mother who thinks her formal education ended when she got her diploma back there in the dark ages just hasn’t been doing her homework. Having progressed through seventh grade (the second time around), two Science Fair projects, and Cub Scouts three times, I figure I’m going to be a gift to any prospective employer by the time I’m ready to take an outside job—that is, provided my fellow students ever finish their education and leave home. Just to list a few of the interesting skills I have acquired, I am expert at drawing, pasting, painting (brush, roll or spray), sanding and cutting, making posters, drawing maps and typing lists, use of all tools, both hand and power, identification of insects and location of strange and unusual objects. I even know the best place to find bugs in October (in the ceiling light in the garage).

In addition, I am a repository of a vast array of unusual facts and information. For instance:

*Fathers are never there when you need them.

*Two dollars and fifty cents doesn’t buy much dry ice.

*If you use the wrong kind of wax on a pinewood derby car, the paint will come off.

*No matter how early you start a project, you always finish in the wee hours of the morning the day it’s due. (Mothers’ law)

*The scraps of wood you saved from the last project are never the right size for the next one.

*Supplies for science projects cost a lot of money.

*The supplies you forgot to get the first time cost a lot more money.

*The piece of glass you buy to replace the one you broke isn’t any more expensive—it just hurts more.

*Science projects are one of the major causes of the working mother syndrome.

*Hardware clerks are generally patient with mothers carrying encyclopedias, even when they insist on pricing every item on the supplies list before they decide to buy and don’t know a half-round from a brace and bit.

*The half-round called for in the directions is neither round nor half of anything.

*You can lose your squeamishness about touching bugs if it’s a matter of your son flunking seventh grade science.

*There are over 250,000 species of beetles, but the ones you find all look alike.

*Insects not preserved in alcohol tend to get fuzzy and fall apart.

*There aren’t many bugs around in the winter, the time when all insect collections are due.

*Good places to look are under rocks, rotting logs and the corner of your basement.

*All books on any project disappear from the library two days before the assignment is due. (Corollary to Mothers’ Law)

*Hurricane winds have been known to reach speeds of 200 miles per hour.

*There are two kinds of hand saws—cross-cut and rip—but either one cuts fingers that get in the way.

*There is never a band-aid in the medicine cabinet when you need one.

*As a general rule, thumbs that get in the way of hammers swell and turn black.

*Soaking your finger in hot epsom salts may not make the nail grow back any faster, but at least you feel you are doing something.

*If you lean too hard on the electric drill you break the bit.

*Fathers get very angry when bits are broken.

*Fathers get very angry when their tools are left out.

*Fathers get very angry when their work bench isn’t cleaned up.

*You can never find a screwdriver around here anyway.

*Mothers get very tired.

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Donna Hruska
2711 2nd Private Road
Flossmoor, Illinois 60422

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