History Day Shenanigans

Last week some coworkers and I were asked to judge a regional History Day competition. History Day is like a Science Fair without the science part. The rules are the same: foam-board displays, pasted-on facts, and glaringly obvious parental involvement. I got assigned to the Elementary school kids, who were pretty easy to locate on account of their tiny, tiny bodies. My job was to walk around with a clipboard, listen to their presentations, and evaluate their worth as human beings. During it all, I frequently daydreamed of driving groups of 10-year-olds to tears with loud, ridiculous declarations ("Could this BE any more pedestrian?!")

Yeah, I didn't do that.

In fact, I was a sucker judge. These kids were too cute for their own good. Most of them were polished, informed, and articulate. Some even wore costumes. How can you grade two girls dressed as Harriet Tubman harshly? Also, the grading system made it difficult to give a realistic score. The three categories were SUPERIOR, EXCELLENT, and GOOD. Frankly, some of the entries I saw were CRAP, but that wasn't a category.

After I had scored all the kiddies, I had to rank them into first, second, and third place. This was probably the most difficult part. My thought process went something like this: "Group-A has a well documented, annotated bibliography. That's good. On the other hand, Group-B is the clear winner in adorableness."

Somehow I got through it.

On the way home, my coworker, Michelle, and I decided to take a small detour into the canyon. We were expected back at the office to finish off the workday, but it was too damned sunny and wonderful outside. So we went wading in a river. Turns out that the water, despite the deceptively pleasant weather, was cold enough to kill a penguin. I suppose unmelted snow near the riverbank should have tipped us off.

Already in the beginning stages of hypothermia, our next great idea was to continue through the canyon to a nearby ski resort. Together we rehearsed the excuse we would offer our boss:

"We tried to get back to the office, honest!" we would say. "But the car suddenly took a wrong turn. And our mothers always taught us that when you're lost, you should always head North. Or in this case, East, towards the mountains. We were as shocked as you are when we found ourselves in skis. Believe us, we have no recollection of ever putting them on. The only logical thing to do at that point was ski home. And for some reason, no matter how hard we skied, we kept ending up back at the resort. It was horrible! I mean, haven't we gone through enough? In fact, why don't you stop badgering us and fetch some hot chocolate?"

Well I still have a job, so sufficed to say, we abandoned that plan. It's too bad though. It would have been awesome.