Words fail me

Yesterday, we spent time after the street party helping my son with the speech he had to make for his school. His sister, the week before had her speech, this being on why junk food is good for you. My son had an idea of making his speech on his favourite cakes. My wife and I did not think that this was a good idea and made some other suggestions for him.  This included talking about his snails that we had bought for him on Saturday. But he pointed out this would not get him many votes. So we all talked about other options and decided to talk about making science fun. A few years ago my daughter spoke about this and carried out an experiment featuring mint Mentos and Diet Coke. She did well but found herself having to make a speech again, which she did not like.  Since then she has done her best not to win the first round of speeches! My son though has ambitions to beat her.  And he had such a good chance. We taught him about the physics of one of his NERF guns and practised his speech, including a bit on fidget spinners.  And after the speech was prepared we got him to leave everything in a bag by the front door (I wanted it in his backpack).

So today, the day he was to present his speech, my wife was called at work, because he left it at home. All that work...