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Science Experiment
Only kids are allowed to like science. Up to a certain age (maybe 10?), dinosaurs, astronauts, bugs and physics experiments are the coolest things in the entire world. But after that, science is strictly off limits in polite conversation. Unless, of course, it's in the context of how "green" something is or you're directly quoting Barack Obama.I was very surprised then, to hear that Portland's Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is now going after the posh twentysomething crowd with a new, once-monthly, strictly 21-plus, after-hours night at the museum. I was even more surprised to show up Wednesday night and find the normally kid-friendly museum completely packed with high heeled, beer-sipping sophisticates.
"You're our 200th couple!" the elderly volunteer at the door said, stamping my hand and that of my companion (NOT A COUPLE) Dan. "Here's your tickets for free vodka!"
After some rent-a-cop security rigorously checked our IDs, Dan and I stood facing a crowd of well-dressed young people mingling around a robot display.
"What should we see first?" I asked.
"I just want to see something explode," Dan replied. We headed for the "hands-on" wing of the museum.
The last time I was at OMSI, I was a 16-year-old camp counselor leading a group of kids on a field trip. This wasn't just any summer camp. This was summer science camp, out past the Cascades where the closest town (population 50) was 15 miles away. That summer I learned the constellations and slept outside on a hill of fossilzed red clay. I watched an eagle eat a deer. And I made out in the taxidermy storage room.
Now, six years later, here I was, part of a "couple," waiting in line outside the physics room for a shot of organically grown vodka. The short skirted girl behind me and her choppy-haired boyfriend were hanging on each other, kissing and cooing. Now THEY were a couple.
I felt a little protective. I wanted to shove past the Abercrombie poseurs checking themselves out in the concave/convex mirror display and say, "Hey! This is my turf!" I bet those bitches couldn't name a single tertiary mammal.
But I should be celebrating all the new faces in the planetarium, not getting fussy because I knew about the science museum before it was cool. So I held my tongue. I didn't make any smartass comments about anything, except the free vodka, which claimed to embody the five "earth elements" and be distilled with wind power.
At the end of the night, Dan and I still hadn't found anything to blow up. Instead, we were engrossed in crafting paper airplanes to throw at a giant fan to demonstrate Bernoulli's Principle. To my left, a broad-chested guy with a baseball cap was snipping paper industriously. Two friendly hipster dudes stood on the other side of the fan, picking up used airplanes and refolding their wings to improve the design.
When the rented museum security officer finally came around and told us we had to "move along, the museum was closing," no one moved until each one of us had taken the time to carefully finish designing our paper airplanes.
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