Wired Writer

Your laboratory or mine?

I received a check in the mail the other day. This doesn't happen very often and I almost jumped up on a nearby chair to do the "I got extra money" dance, not caring a whit as to the source of such monetary loveliness

But, like George and his famous addle-brained, Yellow-Hatted caretaker (Hello? Can we say "restraining harness"? And don't teach the monkey to smoke a pipe! What kind of primatologist are you, anyway?), curiousity soon swelled to proportions that leaked over into my impulse center and I found myself reading the accompanying letter:

Dear Alicia,

I hope this letter finds you well. Harcout Assessment has decided to use your article "The Best Spread On The Bread" as testing material for elementary students. While no byline will be provided, it is a wonderful writing credit to put on your resume, as well as experience the satisfaction of having your work seen by potentially thousands of students each year.

I have enclosed a check for the amount originally paid when the article first ran in our magazine.

Thanks,

J.

Well, hotdiggety dog! I had no idea that testing material could even come from freelance articles. The check itself will barely pay for dinner for the family at any given fast-food restaurant, but that doesn't matter. I now have the satisfaction that tykes all across the country will be sweating it out over the answers to my article about peanut butter in a proficiency test. When were peanuts first discovered? Who held the first patent on peanut butter? Which president shaved with peanut butter while camping? Hard to believe that some kid might be stuck in third grade for a second year beause he couldn't remember the difference between smooth and chunky.

Another day, another writing suprise from the snail mail route: I will have an activity published in the GIANT Encylopedia of Science Activities for Children next year. Oh yes, that' MY EXPERIMENT right there, the one with the empty pop can and an electrically charged comb. You can make the pop can move back and forth without touching by holding the comb near it. What can you say? STATIC ELECTRICITY ROCKS!

And now would be an appropriate place to mention that I totally adore Bill Nye the Science Guy and would love to have dinner with him. No, no need to get upset, folks, my husband is well aware of this "dinner with a wealthy science nerd" fantasy of mine. I have always found white lab coats a little sexy, and if you show me a Bunsen burner firing up a bubbling test tube or two, then I am truly putty in your hands. Dinner with Bill would be awesome, to say the least. Can you imagine the conversation? He would discuss the NASA Mars missions and I would proudly show him my Periodic Table of Desserts. Ah, good times, good times.



















P.S. So I don't get sued, here are the photo credits: Bill Nye from the William Morris Agency; Periodic Table from Eblong.com.

posted by A.M.Adams @ 10/06/2005 10:11:00 PM