All of you parents with elementary aged school children, be warned: by the time your kid reaches high school, make sure you have lots of money, power tools, and great neighbors.

My oldest son Tyler is a Junior, and in Physics this year.

Somehow I lucked out of Physics in both High School and College.

I do know if you drop a sock on the living room floor, it falls at the same rate of speed as the remote control and soda cans. And, no forces of gravity that don’t include my threatening voice result in much of anything moving. That’s the extent of my Physics knowledge.

Homework assignment: build a CATAPULT, from scratch, no kits allowed, that has to throw an object about the size of an egg, exactly 26 feet. And, said egg has to land in a small castle. Your major grade is based on how far the egg object falls from the castle-the further it misses the castle, the lower your grade.

Tyler was pretty well panicked last week. Robert was out working in the Gulf, and I can barely program a VCR. Every time my husband hollers from some broken pipe or gadget “GETTT MEEE AAA CRESCENNNTTT WREEENCCHHH,” I have to remind him that is about the equivalent of my screaming to him, “GRAB MY BRONZE EYE SHADOW AND BE SURE TO BRING MY EYE LINER WITH YOU!!!!!.” Ain’t happening.

Just when I thought my teenager was going to melt down at this project, my super neighbor e-mailed me and said he would be happy to help. I declined, but he insisted, and told me to have Tyler in the garage Saturday morning at 10 am. Tyler was overcome with relief. I told him he should be prepared to mow their lawn for a year.

Saturday morning arrived, and Tyler, my husband and neighbor were next door the entire day. I could hear the power saw and other tools all day. Finally, at about 5 pm, Tyler and my husband walked in the house looking like beat dogs, and said they were nearly done; Sunday would only require fine tuning and decoration.

Decoration? Right about then I remembered Tyler had a partner in this project.

I asked him where she was, and my apparently 17th century born son informed me that his partner did not need to be working around power tools because there was “too much of a chance she would mess it all up.”

‘SCUSE ME?

COME AGAIN?

I was stunned! Where did my mild mannered son come up with this very sexist notion?

“You are ALLOWING her to PAINT IT? Is THAT what you just said to me? And she OFFERED to come over and help?”

Tyler kind of mumbled something again about the potential of her “messing it up” and I thought, “I’m about to show you what messed up looks like, from a female perspective…”

I gave him a hearty lecture about the fact that she had every right to come over and operate those power tools and that he had no right to think that because she is a SHE, that operating power tools was out of her realm.

We have always had a very equal opportunity household. I work in HR for crying out loud. There ain’t no discrimination going on here. Unless you consider being a teenage pig pen a protected class, in which case we do discriminate. But men vs women? No siree.

They fine tuned (and decorated) the catapult on Sunday, Tyler beamed, his partner was impressed.

Tuesday, the big day, rolled around. Tyler said some kids showed up with catapults that were 6 feet tall and required two people to move. They snickered at Tyler and his partner’s tiny, 18 inch model. That lasted until Tyler flipped the lever and shot the egg further than anyone else.

Ultimately, he was a little nervous and the teacher gave them a 95 because they kept hitting the side of the castle and, and not going inside the walls. The fact that on Monday he shot the egg 26 feet and it hit a coke can, dead on, was irrelevant. He was proud of the 95, but irritated that he didn’t get a 100.

So…..today, they were in class, and the teacher made a comment about how well made their catapult was built. She noted that there was not a single nail in it, and mentioned keeping it as a sample for other classes.

Tyler’s FEMALE partner heard that, marched straight up to the teacher and said, “Give us a 100 on the project and you can keep the catapult.”

The teacher, without batting an eye, looked straight at Ms. I-cannot-operate-power-tools-because-my-partner-thinks-I-am-not-qualified, and said, “done.”

Take that Y chromosome and put it in your catapult, son.

Never underestimate the power of a woman.

Especially one offering to operate power tools.

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