Rocket Fuel.

This entry is to be filed under: Things that would never happen in the U.S.

Last spring, Monkey's class finally got to go to Classes Vertes. We call it "Green Week" at our house, and basically, the kids get to go away to a summer camp setting for a week with their class and teachers. The kids absolutely love it and they come back much more mature and independent, so the parents love it too.

Each time they go, there is a theme. The first year A.J. went, the theme was Robin Hood, and everything they learned was centered around the theme. This year, Monkey's theme was science, and the first day the kids built a laboratory in the woods. They did all sorts of nature experiments and even learned some basic chemistry.

One of the projects was to make a rocket out of a 2L bottle, fill it with a naturally made gasoline of some type, and then shoot it off into "space." Keep in mind that we weren't actually there, so this is all hearsay, but that's the just of what I understood.

A few days after they got back and were settled back into the routine of school, Monkey told me he needed to bring a glass jar to school. Monkey never remembers anything like that, and I was proud of him for remembering something that he needed to take to school, all on his own. So much so that I forgot to ask him why he needed a glass jar in the first place.

A few days later, he brought home his glass jar. Filled with a strange purple liquid. "Be careful with that," he said, when he saw me pulling it out of his backpack, "that can't touch skin."

"Excuse me?" I said, "What do you mean by 'it can't touch skin'."

"Well," he explained, "my teacher said that if it touches our skin, we have exactly five seconds to wash it off with soap and water, and we don't want to know what happens if we don't."

"But what is it?" I asked.

"Rocket fuel," he answered. "I want to make rockets and fly them at home."

Huh. And this came home with you in your backpack?

The jar of purple liquid sat on a shelf for six weeks. I was afraid to dump it down the drain for fear of contaminating the general population's water supply. I assumed that this was the very purpose the teacher had distributed it among the second graders. Every time he asked about flying a rocket, I had about a million and ten other ideas for him to do instead. Mr. Wizard, I am not.

Monkey has long forgotten about flying rockets at home, and so the mysterious purple liquid is now safely disposed of, along with its container. And next time Monkey tells me he wants to take a jar to school, I will be sure to ask why.