A Lesson on Your Senses

It's Wednesday night. NIGHT HIKE!!!! My kids have been waiting for this moment all week. We start by walking silently, getting our eyes adjusted to the night sky. They are besides themselves with anxiety and excitement. And as I hear giggles coming form the very back of the trail group, I realize my counselors are pretty antsy too. My first activity is one intended to challenge them to investigate two of their senses: smell and taste. The truth is they are connected and tasting flavor is near impossible without your sense of smell. So the directions are to hold your nose with one hand and put your other hand out in front of you so that I can give you a jelly bean. Chew the jelly bean for 20 seconds and try to figure out what flavor it is. Once I had gotten them to this point, I asked them to let go of their nose and tell me what flavor they had. "Grape!" "Yuck!" "Chocolate!" "Tutti-frutti" And then my counselor.

"I can't taste it. How am I supposed to taste it?"

I didn't exactly know how to respond and knowing me, you can imagine my facial expression at this point. Good thing it was dark. "Well," I really tried not to be patronizing, "With your tongue I guess."

Silence.

Her response sent us all into hysterics. "So its not supposed to be up my nose?"

She must have missed a word here or there. She started to try to snot rocket it out of her nostril as the rest of us keeled over laughing! What planet are these people from?! Moral of the story: Don't be the kind of idiot who does whatever anyone tells you to do. Especially if you think they are telling you to lodge anything up your nose. I guess except for bay leaves cause I tell my kids to do that every week... you get my point.