Museum humor: Fat Men Can't Jump

Fat men can't jump

I was very relieved to find out at the weekend that the unsightly white blotches on my right hand DO NOT MEAN I HAVE CANCER.

I was even more especially pleased to find this out because until I put my hand under a special medical magnifying device at the Questacon children's science museum in Canberra, I never even knew I had unsightly white blotches.

Don't ask me what kind of screening device it was.

I took my son Jack, 5, to Questacon and, as the parents of most five-year-olds will attest, it is very difficult to absorb information when you have to run from exhibit to exhibit answering questions from enquiring minds.

Questacon is nothing like the museums of my youth where you looked but never, ever touched lest you wanted to trip an alarm and be confronted by a grumpy security guard whose mission in life was to ensure that no grubby little fingerprints ever sullied the exhibit cases. I am quite sure this is why I did not grow up to be a scientist.

Just about everything at Questacon is interactive.
Kids are encouraged to touch and explore and, thus, learn more quickly.

Jack has been going to Questacon for several years and I think he has learnt something different from every visit.
When he was two, he seemed to get the greatest joy from twiddling with buttons and seeing strange lights flickering in machines.
He is now at the stage of wanting to know why things do what they do and what they're used for.

No problem. Everything at Questacon seems to have a sign explaining what you are looking at in layman's terms and how the application can be used in a practical sense.
The difficulty is actually finishing reading the signs because Jack moves on quickly to the next exhibit and you hear a little voice saying:" So, what does this one do, daddy?"

The first signs that all was not well with my health started on the ground floor of the museum.

Jack and I went for a ride on a simulated rollercoaster and I felt quite queasy afterwards. Jack seemed fine.
Then we found some kind of laser device that measured how high you could jump.
Jack managed a best of 23cm. My best was 13cm.
Is that normal for a 42-year-old man, I thought as I puffed up the ramp to the upper floors?

Eventually, we found ourselves in an upper gallery with exhibits focusing on the human body and health treatment.

Jack had great fun unravelling a seven-metre stretch of rope from a display that showed the quantity of intestines there were in the average human body.
He also gave an ultrasound to a dummy which appeared to be very pregnant.

Then we saw the special medical magnifying device.

"What's this do, daddy?" asked Jack, as I quickly tried to peruse the sign next to it.

"Well, Jack," I said. "You put your hand under the glass, like this, and doctors can tell if you have damaged or old skin."

Jack's hand was all pink.

Sadly, mine showed up dozens of white blotches I never even knew I had.

I glanced in distress back at the sign, and saw a sentence in capital letters.

It said something along the lines of, "if you have unsightly white blotches, THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE CANCER."

Phew. Thank goodness for that.
As I said, I am soooooooo relieved.

Oh, and by the way, the ultrasound showed I am not pregnant either. I am just fat.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it