March 7, 2013
-
In Which I am Hoodwinked
Well, I don’t really think of myself as terribly gullible, but that doesn’t mean I’m infallible. Today I fell for a hoax, and although to me it’s both a little amusing and a little annoying, it was very disappointing to Jasper.
Yesterday his science class made “firefly jars.” He was supposed to bring a glass jar with a lid and some glow sticks, if he had any. I was delighted to discover that I did have a little stash of glow sticks left over from something or other, so I put them in a zip lock bag with his jar.
In class, he was rather dismayed to find out that all except one of his glow sticks were taken away and given to other children, especially since their firefly jars glowed and his did not. There was no backup stick for him to try, and he was so upset about his dud firefly that he just gave his jar away and spent the rest of the afternoon grieving over it.
I felt so bad for him. I was fresh out of glow sticks, so I spent hours that I really couldn’t spare trying to figure out a way to get him a working firefly jar. I was willing to go out and buy glow sticks, but I wanted to make sure I had all the right supplies. One of the things I came across in my research was a couple of how-to articles on making your own glow jars with Mountain Dew, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide.
I thought I would surprise Jasper by letting him do this experiment tonight after my Bible study. I found four clean jars with lids. I measured out four portions of baking soda and four portions of hydrogen peroxide. I even added glitter to make it more awesome. I got Mercy and Lucy to do it too. I put in the prescribed amount of Mountain Dew and then we all added the other ingredients, screwed on the lids, and shook up our jars.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, nothing happened. What we had was four jars of foamy Mountain Dew with glitter. Poor Jasper. We tried adding more of various ingredients, but none of it helped. Jasper was so disappointed. That’s when I went back to the computer to figure out what we had done wrong. What we did wrong was to fall for a long-running hoax that has been circulating on the internet for some time.
So, guess who’s going out to buy glow sticks in the morning? Tomorrow night we had better have some glowing firefly jars!
Today has been rough in other ways also. My cold, after seeming to almost disappear over the weekend, has come back with a vengeance and today I had a very hard time functioning. I am really hoping to feel better tomorrow!
