What am I Doing in the Pits?

By Margy McCarthy


This morning I have tossed aside my ratty weekend writer clothes and donned a white lab coat in the name of science. I am filled with the incandescent glow of humanitarian zeal and several cups of dark roast coffee. I am strong; I am invincible; hear me roar. My mission? I dedicate myself today to improving the lives of mothers everywhere; to delve where no woman has gone before; to plumb the depths of the imponderable and to find at last, an irrefutable answer to a question that has plagued generations.

It has been several years since I formally taught science, so I needed a little refresher course. Here, as a reminder to myself and to my fellow researchers, are the steps of the scientific method:
1. Ask a Question
2. Do Background Research
3. Construct a Hypothesis
4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
6. Communicate Your Results

Step 1:

The question to be addressed today, is one I'm sure we have all asked at some point in time:

Where is my kitchen table?

Step 2:

I have conducted my research by posing two simple questions to resident experts and recording their responses.
Question 1: Where is the kitchen table?
Question 2: When did you last see it?
I have conflicting results already. See Data I below.

Data I:
Resident Expert #1 - Shriek, female, age 12.
Response to Scientific Question 1: “In the kitchen.”
Question 2: “I saw it a minute ago when I got a doughnut.”
When further pressed- (“Are you sure you saw it?”) this expert’s reply was, “Mom, you’re being weird.”

Resident Expert #2 - Sparky, male, age 47.
Response to Scientific Question 1: “I have no idea. I was wondering that too.”
Question 2: “It’s been a few days. Wednesday, maybe? Thursday? Do you think we should file a report?”

Resident Expert #3 - Snooze, male, age 19.
Response to Scientific Question 1: “Huh? What?"

Scientist repeats Scientific Question 1: "It’s in the kitchen.”
Question #2: “I saw it last night.”
(Notation- Snooze was awakened at 9:48 a.m. for the sole purpose of research questioning. Grogginess may be a variable to consider in analyzing the validity of this expert’s response.)

As I study these results, I suspect that this is the point at which my esteemed predecessors in this field began to falter. Not only is there a lack of consistency , but the responses fall into distinctly opposing camps seemingly indistinguishable by gender, but accordant to the age of the respondent. See Data II.

Data II:
Number of Experts under the age of 21 who claim to have seen the table: 2
Number of Experts over the age of 21 who claim to have seen the table: 0

Number of Experts over the age of 21 who see only hot Cheetos bags, two empty pizza boxes, 6 pop cans, a bunch of dirty dishes, a stack of unused paper napkins, two pieces of junk mail, and a partially deconstructed Entenmann’s doughnut box in the place where the table used to be: 2

Number of Experts under the age of 21 who see only hot Cheetos bags, two empty pizza boxes, 6 pop cans, a bunch of dirty dishes, a stack of unused paper napkins, two pieces of junk mail, and a partially deconstructed Entenmann’s doughnut box in the place where the table used to be: 0

Step 3:

A hypothesis is an educated guess about how things work: "If [I do this], then [this] will happen." So- here is my hypothesis: “If I clear the debris from the surrounding area this morning I will rediscover my kitchen table and we will be able once again to sit together as a family and enjoy a home-cooked meal tonight.”

Sounds reasonable. I will take off my lab coat now and put on a pith helmet. I really probably need additional protective gear; I’ll have to be an archaeologist for a while. I don't know why I'm so nervous- this is, after all, only a 52” square of turn-of-the-century golden oak on four sturdy legs- not some mysterious black hole with super-magnetic properties…
Or is it? Any predictions on my hypothesis? Will my experiment prove true? Will I survive the test and break new scientific ground? Wish me luck- here I go…

* * *

One more thing-- and I swear to you I am not making this up. This is an actual picture taken just this morning of part of the area in question. Resident Expert Sparky refused to allow a picture of the whole “missing table” to be posted on the www, but the irony of this was too good to pass up: (Erma? Can you hear me? Do you SEE this?)

Cherry pits.