Science Experiment Gone Wrong

I believe that it's good for kids to learn things by doing them,

 rather than reading about them in a book.  

So when Kimberly brought home a science project where she was supposed to grow a plant, 

I should have been excited right?  

Yeah.  Not so much.

Not because it's not a cool idea.

In concept.

It's the fact that I have a habit of killing anything that uses photosynthesis

 that I have ever tried to cultivate indoors. 

 I only have about a 50% success rate with things I try to grow outdoors.

Asking me to keep a plant alive in my house is akin to asking an alligator to babysit a chicken.

It's just not going to end well.  

My daughter's grade depends on me not killing this plant.

It's not fair.  To her mostly.  But also to me. 

 You don't know what kind of stress I've been under because of this.

To make matters worse.  It wasn't just one plant to keep alive.  

It was two.

She was supposed to start the two of them growing,

 then do something to one of them, to see how it changed how the plant grew.

The caveat being, whatever she did was supposed to be something that might naturally occur in nature.

So Kimberly went out in the yard, dug up some worms, and put them in with plant A.

That little thing there at the bottom.  A clipping of a plant that grows in our front yard.  

Not the bean plant she is supposed to be growing.  Not worms.  

She's good at following directions.  Can you tell?

This is plant B.  No Worms.

So everything was going just fine.  Both plants were growing.  

Plant A seemed to be growing slightly faster than Plant B, but nothing drastic.

I was actually beginning to wonder if the worms were going to make a significant enough 

difference  to count as a valid experiment.

They were getting equal amounts of sun sitting in my kitchen window.

Overlooking my sink.

The very sink where I was standing a few nights ago,

 trying to drain the grease off the meatloaf I made for dinner, 

without dumping the meatloaf in the sink.

While running VERY hot water so the grease wouldn't clog my pipes.

When I lost the grip on the loaf pan, the hot glass burning my hand.

When I jerked my hand away from the burning, I knocked Plant B into the sink.

Into the grease.

Into the hot water.

Somehow, miraculously, none of the potting material ended up in the meatloaf.

I scooped it up and placed it all back in it's cup.

Placed the cup back in the windowsill.

The next morning, Plant B looked like this.

Ooops.

Apparently meatloaf grease and scalding hot water aren't conducive to the growing process.

Who knew?

Also, I probably just earned my daughter an F on her experiment, because I'm pretty sure getting doused with meatloaf grease and scalding hot water are not something that would occur in nature.

On the bright side.  I didn't completely kill it.

Those are new leaves growing there at the top.