The 4th Law of Thermodynamics

  

My 8 year old son Jack has a cold.  So do I in fact.  I won't blame it on our visitors who stayed with us this past weekend.  Three out of four of them had sniffles and sneezes and coughs.  Regardless, I tend to put the responsibility right on the shoulders of the virus that causes this discomfort.

Because my boy feels lousy, he's angling for a day off of school.  But, he's just not that sick.  He's got  a stuffed up head and a runny nose but that's not sufficient reason to miss out on all the academic fun.  I am sure 85% of his classmates have the same thing.  It is, after all, winter and they've been cooped up together for weeks.  

The school, and we as parents, draw the line at a fever.   There may be something more insidious going on inside kids that spike a temperature.  So, we've taken his approximately 35 times since 8PM last night.  He knows that if his temperature is elevated, it's a free ticket to playing games in bed and hanging out with dad for the day.  

This morning, I quietly watched as he did everything possible to get the digital thermometer past 98.6 degrees.   Shifting it in his mouth, taking it out and putting it back in, turning it upside down; nothing worked.  His last futile attempt was the funniest of the lot.  He thrust the thermometer under his tongue with the dexterity of a master swordsman.  Concentrating, he crunched down on the plastic instrument and held his breath.   Figuring if he held the thermometer in his mouth for a long period of time, the laws of thermodynamics would cease to exist.   A new physical reality would be created.   In the mind of a kid that wants nothing to do with school, the fresh paradigm leaps into being which states that:  A young and bored human body, at rest, concentrating hard enough and long enough will create energy from sheer thought.  

I should have told him not to bother with trying to step around inexorably fixed natural law.  While I wasn't looking, all he had to do was put the thermometer under a stream of hot water.    I guess Dad still has quite a bit to teach his young student!