Working Overtime.

I had a program yesterday afternoon that was supposed to start at 4:30. It was 80 girl scouts coming from a variety of places, so there was no way in the remotest places of hell that we could have started on time. It was remarkably close, but I did start about 5 minutes late.

It was a great program -- the kids were really having a nice time, and dare I say, even learning a few things.

I was getting to the very end, and I was reprising all the slides in an obvious summary when I hear a shrill parent voice say:

"IT'S 5:35!!!"

I stopped for a second in horror of the rudeness. I did notice also that the screeching was coming out of one of the parents that came in last. I recovered quickly, and continued with the last minute of the review in an obvious attempt to ignore the squealer. I was getting very close to the end, when --

"NOW IT'S 5:37!!!"

I just turned to her general area and told her, "You may leave. The door is open."

"Well I don't want to MISS ANYTHING," she told me in what I can only describe as the snottiest tone of voice I have ever heard. I thought, She needs to die. Would any jury convict me?

"Then quit yer bit---" I stopped, but was incredibly close to telling a patron to 'quit her bitchin'. I recovered and said, "Then stop complaining. It's not helping me go any faster."

I hate sounding cynical, of sorts, but I am really astonished at the rudeness of the world.

Today: A Very Special Mr. Astronomy Guy

I had a group of second graders first thing this morning. The reservation request form which came for this group had written on it the following:
"A star was purchased in honor of a little girl in our second grade who died in December... please show children location of that star."

A lot of people ask me about the International Star Registry or the Universal Star Council. The question is usually "Is this real?" Of course it's 'real'. But a lot of people think they will get a nice bright star up there. The star you get will no doubt be invisible to the naked eye.

But it can be a very sweet, lasting sentimental gift. It's a nice idea for someone who will enjoy it.

I am not a very sentimental or even serious person. The Planetarium is a fun place. I don't want to have to talk about a deceased child. I'm not insensitive, I'm just not outwardly emotional. I told the teacher that our projector wouldn't show the star they wanted to see. She really wanted them to see it. "Besides," she told me, "the girl's mother and twin brother are here, and I told them we would see it."

Ohmigod, I thought. It just got a lot worse.

"All right," I told her. "Show me the star charts."

Of course, it was in Cancer. Why is that a problem? Because that is the constellation with the dimmest stars. IT basically IS THE HARDEST OF ALL CONSTELLATIONS TO FIND. So I get to try to show them the general vicinity of an invisible star amongst a bunch of near-invisible stars, AND show it to a mother and son who have recently lost a daughter/sister.

I was feeling a little churny about the whole thing.

The show began in earnest and enjoyment as it always does. I showed them the moon and some constellations. I had just got done talking about Leo, the last of the constellations I had planned to discuss. Right in front of Leo is the region of Cancer, so it was a natural segue into talking about the little girl's star.

I had no idea what to say. It was quiet for almost a full minute.

I took a deep breath.

"I know that there is a star you want to see. You guys had a classmate named Caroline, and she has a star in her honor. It's just hers, and it will be there forever." I showed them the bright stars of Leo, and the bright star of Gemini -- Cancer splits the difference. "Right here is Cancer. And right between these two dims stars, is her star. Though you can't see the star up on the dome, you can be sure it's there. And will be there forever."

Silence. There wasn't even a breath. I didn't ask for a moment of silence or anything, I couldn't have possible managed to get the words out, and I didn't KNOW the girl. It just spontaneously happened.

After an extremely long moment (it was probably shorter than it seemed), I went on. But the air had been sucked out of the program. I didn't even feel like making my usual jokes. I made it through the end of the show, but I was just hoping I'd never need to do something like that again. I have enough trouble doing light-hearted shows, at this point, anything of a serious note is WAY too much.

At the end of the show, the teacher thanked me for everything. She seemed happy, and that was a good thing, at least. She then reminded me, "The rest of the 2nd grade will be here next week. Make sure you show them the star, too."

I'll try.

Still hurting.

Ouch. This is the third day in a row with 4 shows per day. I will see nearly 300 people JUST TODAY. My brain, sides, neck, and ass all hurt in their own special ways.

I'll try to catch up on some stories before show #4 for today...

Never mind.

I just came in to jot down a couple quick Blogs about the hearing impaired kids I had yesterday, the 4 year olds that continue to drive me crazy, and a nifty show of 5th graders.

HOWEVER, the kids from the show that is starting in a HALF HOUR have already begun to arrive. Those Blogs will have wait. Maybe tomorrow.

So I guess I have to go out and be Mr. Greeter-Man before I have to be Mr. Astronomy Guy.

This week is crazy. 4 shows a day. No time to sit. My back, throat and legs are killing me.

Sorry, there's not much to laugh at here!

Bleah.

Complete Ignorance.

I have to run a quick Blog of a group of 4 year olds I had last week. Setting the stage: there were 28 kids and 3 adults.

When I present for a group of this age, you have to do some Q&A during the show. You ask them questions that you are sure they will know the answer to, they all get to participate, they pay attention, and it builds their intelligence esteem.

So, I started with my discussion of the North Star, and began to talk about Ursa Minor.



I told them we were going to see a little bear and asked, "You guys know what a bear is, right??" Usually the response is a resounding "YES!!"

This time, just a couple kids responded, and they said, "No."

NO?!? Maybe they just misheard. "It's a bear! Big fuzzy guy. Lives in the forest. You know... a bear?"

They all chimed in this time, "NO!!"

That was odd. Usually, by this age, they've heard of a bear. I guess they haven't talked about animals much in the nursery school. "That's OK," I said. "He's a pretty funny looking bear, anyway. To me, he looks more like a squirrel!" I usually get a little giggle here. Kids laugh at squirrels. Not this time. "You guess know what a squirrel is, right?!?"

"NO!!!" They all responded.

Weird. I think they really just had no idea what they were saying. A couple kids said "no" the first time. So I think they just kept doing it. That was how it went for the entire show.

I figured I was safe when I got to Canis Major -- "You guys know what a dog is, right??"

"NO!!" They all told me.

I gave up after that. The next that I was going to show was Taurus. If they claim they don't know "dog", there's no way they will know "bull". I skipped Leo altogether.

I really don't like little kids.

Sasquatch.

I had a road show last Friday night. It was a big crowd (over 100 -- hey! That's a lot for me!). It was for the Chatham area boy scouts, and about 70 of the attendees were actual scouts. The rest were parents and younger siblings.

I was supposed to begin around 7:15 or 7:30, but the scout leaders didn't get done yapping until about 8:00. I tried to keep it short, but I am a verbose person, by nature. Sorry.

It was in a hall connected to a church. OH! And there was a stage! I never worked on stage before. It's pretty cool, actually. I am quite sure I want to be a rock star when I grow up.

The room itself was a public-speaking nightmare. It was basically a box. Any whisper across the room sounded like Chewbacca was screaming in your ear. I think if someone had sneezed, we would have blown all the windows out. So, as I was trying to speaking, the murmur of the crowd was deafening and disruptive.

But nothing was as disruptive as Sasquatch. I also refer to him as leadfoot. He was a 3-year old kid, who just ran back and forth through the room, basically the whole time. Most of his running took place before I started speaking, but it horrified me as I was waiting to perform. Every one of his steps was like a gunshot.

SO, you could only understand every other word of anyone who was speaking... "Good eve*--boom--*, everyone. Hope you ar*--boom--* having a *--boom--* night. Now, we a*--boom--* to hand *--boom--* out the badge*--boom--* that the *--boom--*y scouts hav*--boom--* earned."

It was pretty horrible. And, about 20 feet behind Sasquatch was his father, meandering slowly behind, but doing nothing to stop the cacophony.

There was all sorts of noise during my presentation, and the scout leaders kept issuing "HUSH"es at the scouts. The leaders were directing their scolding at the wrong audience. It was the ADULTS who were being constantly disrespectful! The kids were really paying attention, the adults were using this time to catch up on each others' life stories.

Really the show wasn't too bad, except for the fact that my throat was pretty burnt by the end.

I just did a count of the people reserved for May. The count: 3070. Previous record: an ass-wrenching 2168.

I am fairly certain that I will not survive.

I am off to go cry in the corner for a little while before the Boy Scouts get here.

Did anyone bring a snack?

I just did 3 shows, back-to-back of ALL little tiny kids -- most were 4 years old. They really weren't that bad for this age group, but I just don't like small children, well-behaved or otherwise.

At least there was no vomiting today.

At the end of the last show I was doing my usual question and answer session. When the 4 year olds ask a question, often the shy ones talk very quietly. In this case, there was a girl in the second row talking so low, I could not hear her. So, as I need to do sometimes, I leaned over a kid in the front row to hear what she had to ask. I forget what the question was, but as she was asking it, I heard one of the teachers yell out:

"Tyler! Spit that out!!"

I looked around to see what Tyler had eaten. I didn't have to look far -- just straight down. Tyler was the kid I was leaning over, and he had about 3 inches of my tie in his mouth and was chewing furiously. The kid was EATING MY TIE! I'm pretty sure he is part goat.

HEY!

I just passed my Blogaversary! Over one year of Blogs! It has gone by quickly. I'm amazed that I am still doing it. Most of the blogs I check have 1 or 2 entries, and then seem to have died.

Thanks for reading. I shall try to keep it up.

What the Chuck?

Third program for the day: A group of pre-Kindergarten kids. All of them were 4 years old. They seemed like they might be a decent group... I asked them what they should do in the halls, and one kid raised his hand and told me, "Zip it up!" That was exactly right! So, I told the group to all "zip it up!" and we went into the Planetarium.

They were relatively quiet as we got going. I turned the lights off, and we got to talking about the moon.

Then, one kid yelled out the sentence I had hoped I would never hear: "I'm going to throw up!"

It was followed by a sound I refuse to describe, but I'm sure you can imagine it.

I turned the twilight, moon glow, red floor lights, and a couple big slides on to give us some light. The kid had succeeded in getting 40% of the vomit on his own shirt, 40% on the floor, and the other 20% on the chair. (NO, I didn't measure it exactly. These are rough estimates made in a moment of panic, just for ambiance.)

One of the teachers left the room immediately, which I thought odd. I'm not sure where she was going. Another teacher was tending to the kid -- trying to get his shirt off while keeping the majority of the upchuck on the shirt and off the boy. She asked, "Do you have some paper towels?"

I was way ahead of her. I had grabbed a roll from behind the control panel, and was holding them out to her as I told her, "Yes, I do."

"Oh, good!" she said. And then she left with the kid.

Apparently she was glad that I had paper towels for my own sake.

Let me take a little snapshot of what is happening at this moment. The teachers have left the room. I am there with 29 four year olds who have realized that one of their friends has vomited, and that there is no show currently going on, so they all start climbing all over the seats. I am hunched over a pile of puke in the near dark with college-grade paper towels (think extra-thick tissues).

"WAKE UP!" I screamed inside my own brain. "Ohmigod, please, please, PLEASE wake up." But, alas, this was no dream. I don't think I've ever had a Planetarium nightmare this bad, anyway; I should have known immediately that it was real.

I cleaned up the cookie-toss in the dark as best I could, and sort of zipped through a show. The kids were all completely lost by the time I got back to any actual information. How can I compete with an actual up-chuck?? Once someone blows chunks, you can pretty much cancel the rest of the program.


Apparently, there is an epilogue to this -- they first teacher who went out went to call the boy's mother, to have her come pick him up. The mother said 'no'. She said that she had a 9-year-old at home with an ear infection, and couldn't go out. It seems that the head of the preschool came and got the boy. I'm not sure what she did with him.


I can't say that I've had a good day.

The class commenter.

Show number 2 was a group of second graders. There was one girl in there, sitting right next to the control panel, who had something to say about just about everything. It was odd, because nobody else seemed to notice she was saying anything at all. The rest of the group was real quiet. No students laughed. No teachers shushed her. It was like she was making these comments for me only. It was quite odd. And the comments weren't your classic 2nd grade fare. It's difficult to describe, really...

I put up a picture of Orion, and she said, "Whoa. He's creeping me out. He looks Russian."

What does that mean?

During the Mars Rover information, she had a bunch of things to say...

When some of the booster rockets fell off she said, "Whoa. If one of those falls onto some guy's house, that guy would be bummed out."

I silently agreed.

When the landing pod opened up to reveal the Mars Rover itself, she starting quietly singing "Happy Birthday" to it.

I thought it a nice sentiment.

When the Rover started moving, she mentioned, "It's roverskating!"

I have no idea why, but that cracked me up.


The odd thing: She really wasn't bothering me a bit with the things she was saying. Normally, when someone is making comments, I am just terribly annoyed. I was actually amused, and pleased that she was paying attention, and absorbing stuff so quickly that she could make some unique comment about it. And she never stepped on my lines; she was quietly saying stuff in my down time.

Is it raining in here?

What a day. 3 back to back shows.

The first one showed up way too early, but I jumped out and got things going. It was a pretty good group, really. It was a fifth grade class.

At the end, I asked if there was any questions (most of my loyal readers are familiar with this part).

One kid in the front row raised his hand. I gave him a point and a nod, indicating that he should let me know his question...

"Do you know you spit on me?" he said.

"'scuse me?" I responded.

"You spit on me. Seriously."

"I don't think so," I said.

Now I realize I do get all wired up during a show. But saliva does not fly out of my mouth, so far as I know.

"No, seriously," he told me. "You were yelling something about the moon, I think, and a piece of spit hit me right in the neck."

"I guess I might have. I didn't mean it," I said.

"I know it," he told me, sincerely. "I just wondered if you knew you did it."

"I didn't!" I said. "I had no idea. Sorry, man." I really said 'sorry, man' to a 5th grader.

"Don't worry. I just wanted to let you now." He really didn't seem upset at all.

I guess I'll have to calm down the shows a little -- at least the moments where I start to froth up.

Go into the Light. There is Peace and Serenity in the Light.

Last Friday there was a small group of cub scouts -- 2nd grade. There was 9 of them, and 6 adults. A small group, to be sure; basically not worth staying late on a Friday night for. (That sentence feels grammatically icky for some reason, but I'm leaving it. Sorry.) As long as they are enthusiastic about the trip, and cooperative during the program, it's not bad, and makes it feel worth while.

Of course, that was not to be.

A few moments into the program, as I was talking about the moon, one of the kids lit up. He just started to glow. It was rather disconcerting! I realized soon enough that he had brought a flashlight. A FLASHLIGHT! Into my Planetarium. I figured he had his little fun with it, and then would give up.

But, alas, I was so wrong.



This was a plastic flashlight -- I guess I would call it "regular" sized. Probably something that took 2 "C" sized batteries. As I was talking about stuff, he would turn it on for a few moments, shine it around the room, and then turn it off. I just kept hoping he would get bored with it and stop. I should mention that he was sitting next to his mother. She had nothing to say.

The camel-back-breaking-straw was when he decided to shine it right in my face.

"I realize that's fun," I told him nicely, "but it makes it a little hard for the rest of us to see when you turn on the flashlight. If you could stop turning it on in here that would be great. Thanks."

I could have said it in a much more sarcastic tone than I actually did. I was actually very nice about it. I should have ripped it out of his hands and slammed him over the head with it. But I didn't. I asked nicely.

His mother then told me, "But it's his flashlight!" She sounded completely pissed off that I would ask her kid to not disrupt the rest of the room.

"I'm not taking away from him. I just need him to not use it in the dark. It ruins the night vision of all of us in the room." I was flabbergasted.

Her response: "But he likes playing with it!!"

What the...? This was not a kid with any mental deficiency, he was just a regular 7 year old kid! Apparently mom lets this kid do ANYTHING he LIKES to do!!

The rest of the show was very subdued. It was as if the rest of them were pissed off that I asked him to turn off his flashlight, too.

The showed ended, they said muted, 'Thank you's and left.

There's been a lot of talk lately about Sedna, that little doodad way out there in the Solar System. I even blogged a little whiny blog as people were calling it a planet.

I just had a group of Girl Scouts, and we did mention that we are planning a mission to Pluto, and that it would take at least ten years to get there. One girl, at the end, asked me about going to Sedna... and I told her that Sedna was 4 times further away from the sun than Pluto, and suggested that the distance was too great to reasonably send something out there to check it out. She didn't seem to get it, so I tried to give her a little perspective...

"How old are you?" I asked her.

"Nine," she told me.

"Well, if we packed you up into a spacecraft and sent you off to Sedna, you be FORTY-EIGHT when you got there!"

"Wow," she said, "If my mother is still alive then, I'll be older than her!"

Their First Taste of Continuing Education

Yesterday I had some 3rd graders come for a program. Right inside the door is a row of chairs. In one of the chairs, a student was sleeping -- he was sitting legs stretched out, head flung way back, mouth open. It was obvious he was asleep. It was, of course, the first thing the 3rd graders noticed. They were all buzzing about it on the way in -- "Did you see the sleeping guy?" "That guy was just sleeping in the hallway!"

I did my signature Planetarium performance. I thought it went well... they seemed to be engaged and well-behaved.

The group needed to get the buses back, so they had some time constraints. This is always nice, because sometimes the Q & A part of the show goes on for a LONG time. This time, it was 1:19, and they needed to leave at 1:20. I asked the teachers if there was time for any questions -- one told me that we could do TWO questions. Cool.

One kids had an excited arm outstretched, with the hand fluttering back and forth like a leaf in the wind. If I didn't call on him, I was afraid that his arm might actually fly off, and zip around the room. "What's your question?" I prompted him.

"Why was that guy sleeping out in the hallway?"

Hmmm. Apparently he had been sitting there the whole time just thinking about the sleeping guy. It was like this show, chock full of cool and exciting astronomy, never occurred.

"Umm," I said, "I guess he was tired."

"Oh," the kid said.

"OK, I can take one more question," I told them.

An intelligent looking girl on the other side of the room had her hand politely up. I decided that she would have something related to what we just did, so I called on her.

"Why was he so tired?" she asked.

"**--sigh--** I'm not sure. I guess he's just been working hard," I said.

"Oh," she said, eyes wide. "Is college that hard?!" She sounded quite concerned.

"It can be," I told her. "For the students and the teachers."

Last weekend I had some public shows. At the end of the first show, after everyone else had gone, there was one family in the hallway...

I wasn't going to Blog about this -- it's certainly not a funny incident -- but it's been bouncing around my brain, and it seems the only way I can dump this stuff out of my brain is to Blog it.

...Anyway, the father-figure of the family came up to me and told me, "That was a really great show. We had a very nice time..."

As he was talking, I could tell there was something on his mind. He had a sort of wistful melancholy about him.

He continued on about the things he liked about the program, and went on to say, "I just had to tell you -- One of my best friends in the world died a couple years back. He was a great guy, very dynamic. I miss him a lot. He was unique, and had a unique way of speaking. Your presentation style is exactly like his. Your voice, the way you vary your volume and tempo -- it was exactly like his. A couple times I just closed my eyes and it was like he was right there."

What do you say to something like that? I'm not even sure how I felt... flattered? honored? I certainly never had anyone mention anything like that before.

That Sinking Feeling

I should be doing some work -- I am currently writing our newsletter. It's about 2 and half months late, so I really can't afford to jump over to here and jot down even this quick message, but I had to do it. It's been a crazy day filled with awful children, so I'm having trouble focusing on work, anyway.

The Planetarium has been crazy busy -- I've mentioned that. It's really been insane. I keep getting the dreaded birthday party calls, but now it's almost fun, because most of my weekends are already spoken for. The mean streak in me enjoys listening to the crushed tone in their voice when I tell them the situation. I just had a call from a bubbly Dad... usually it's Mom who calls, so this was a little different...

"Hey there," Bubbly Dad said. "My kid is going to be turning seven and he would love a birthday party at the Planetarium! You do birthday parties, right?"

My new line is: "You can reserve the Planetarium for a private show." This always confuses them.

"But do you do birthday parties??" he asked.

I hate 'doing birthday parties'. I don't 'do' birthday parties. I put on my most serious businessman voice and told him, "You can reserve the Planetarium for a private function. What that function is for is up to you."

I won't say it anymore -- I refuse to say 'Yes, we do birthday parties.' I really can't tell them 'No', but that doesn't mean I have to say 'Yes.'

"So, what about birthday parties?" he asked.

My sarcastic, evil personality drifts in at this point, "What about them?" I'm kind of having fun at this point.

"Do you do them?" he asks, obviously confused.

You can't make me say it!! "One can reserve the facility for a group."

"Like a birthday party?" he asked.

Nice try! This felt like a skit on Whose Line is it Anyway? "Any private function, really."

He just got real quiet for a little while. Eventually I think he kind of got it, when he asked, "OK, good! Because my kid loves Astrology!"

I know I am a pedantic bastard for this, but as soon as he said that his kid loves Astrology I was looking forward to dashing his hopes and dreams. Astrology. Sheesh.

"You mean astronomy?" I asked him in a disgusted tone.

"I guess so," he said. Oh, my. "So can we reserve a spot on the last Saturday in April? The 24th?"

I immediately perked up. "You were looking for a Saturday?" I said.

"Yeah," he replied.

"The next Saturday I have available is in August," I told him. It's true!

There was an odd sort of snorting noise on the other end of the line; it sounded like he was choking on a jellybean.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I thought it was obvious, but I explained it to him: "We're filled up. Every available Saturday between now and August has at least 3 shows scheduled. That's all I can do in a day. We're filled up until August."

"What about April 24th?" He wasn't getting it.

"That day, too," I told him. I had the urge to twist the knife and add, "...especially that day." But I figured that I'd already slapped him in the face hard enough.

"Oh," he said, obviously crushed. I wonder if he had already promised his kid the astronomy party?! Yipes.

I couldn't help it -- I said, "Hey, maybe next year. Be sure to book it early!"

When Visitors Get Angry -or- Things I Can't Say But Wish I Could

I had some public shows this weekend. They really went pretty well... the program is a reprise of one I did about a year ago called "Postcards From Space"; it's about some of the space programs: Apollo, Viking, Voyager, Hubble. It's a nifty program -- and there's a bunch of multimedia stuff that I use in it. I especially like the way it flows -- Moon to Mars to Outer Planets to Beyond.

The second show I did had a whole horde of families that all seemed to be Russian. They all had similar Russian accents, and the ALL had tiny little kids -- they looked about 4 years old. Through most of the first half of the show, the kids were running around, and the parents were yakking to each other in Russian. It was horribly annoying, and I drifted by them and kept talking really loudly and annoyingly right by their heads. I had hoped it would be a subtle indication of their annoyance, but it just seemed to make them talk louder, so I gave up.

There was one fellow in the front row. He was there with his 9 or 10 year old son, and they were really enjoying the program. But he was getting more and more annoying with the chatty Russians.

As you read the next part, remember that he says this in a VERY American way, AND that the people to whom he is speaking were chatting in RUSSIAN...

He turns and growls at them: "Parlez vous 'shut the hell up'?"

It was hilarious.


Maybe you had to be there...

New and Exciting Torture Methods.

I amazed at how well the little kids can continually come up with new and exciting ways to torture me.

I just dismissed a group of 3rd graders that were one of the most insane I've ever seen. The entire group was crazy. These kids should just be served Ritalin™ burgers for lunch, and a side salad with quallude dressing. These kids were nuts.

I had to tell about 20 kids to sit in the seats the right way -- put the folding seat down, stop standing on the seats, please don't sit there upside down -- stuff like that.

About 5 minutes into the show, as I was discussing the North Star, for some unknown reason, they started playing Marco Polo. One kid would yell out "Marco!", and the rest of the class would scream "Polo!". This went on for a little while. I just stopped talking. Eventually they figured out that the show had ceased. Once they quieted down, one kid yelled out, "Oh, did you stop because of us?"

I almost killed him.

They were really pretty uncooperative throughout. At the end of the show, after the lights came on, we did some questions, and then they started to get up to go.

In the middle of the room, at the base of the Planetarium projector, there are 250 watt floodlights that light up the room. They are behind a short wall of Plexiglas™, but it is very easy for 3rd graders to reach over that and touch the light bulbs. And for some reason every kid wants to. I told the class, "Be careful near the middle, those lights are really hot!" They were too busy laughing and goofing of to pay attention to me, though.

This is were it gets mean, on my part.

I saw one kid reach over to lay his hand on one of light bulbs. Really, I couldn't have said anything fast enough to stop him -- to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have anyway. I saw him yank his hand away very quickly and start blowing on it.

One of the chaperones went over, and they had a first aid kit with an ice pack, and they gave it to him to put it on his hand. The chaperone came over to me and asked, "Are those light bulbs hot?" In an incredulous voice.

"They are light bulbs," I simply told her.

"Oh. I think he may have burned his hand on the light."

"That's possible, "I told her." I told them not to touch them."

"He didn't hear you," she said.

"Huh," I told her.

I turned to the injured boy, "Do you touch light bulbs at home?"

"No," he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I'll get burned," he told me.

"There ya go," I said to him and the chaperone.