I had a day camp group on Tuesday. Yep, a camp group on the day after labor day. Weird.
Apparently their school is under construction, so they won't be starting school for another 3 weeks. Dang.
Now, I don't know if the kids are getting worse, or I am just burning out, but these kids were pretty awful. They really did not seem to want to be cooped up in a dark room for an hour.
I knew it was going to be bad from the start. The behavior of the adults and chaperones is always a good indication of how bad a show will go. This is a good example of how people just hear what they want to hear --
The head counselor came up and said, "When I called they said that you only have 80 seats. Well, I have 86 people, is that going to be a problem?"
I said, "How could it not be?"
"Oh, good," she said, visibly relieved.
I had no response.
They packed into the Planetarium, and that same head counselor asked if they should go to the bathroom if they need to before we begin.
"It's not a bad idea," I said. "They can't go once the program gets going."
She yelled to the group -- "Does anyone need to use the bathroom? You have to go now!"
75 of the 86 got up to go. Each of the bathrooms have 2 stalls.
20 minutes later they were back.
The group had a wide variety of ages, some as young as five, and as old as 15.
As it was getting darker, some of them were asking some questions. One little girl had her arm up, with her hand flapping nervously. I asked her if she had a question. She nodded and asked, "Are we all gonna die?"
Why would a 5 year old think like this? I assured her that we would all likely survive, that we had had no fatalities in my tenure as astronomer as of yet.
She seemed unconvinced.