Monday, August 18, 2014

The Hottest Time of the Day

Hello,

I wanted to get this post out before hot summer turned into cool autumn.

Sometimes we tend to skip a column because we know the answers, we don't care, it is what it is, it goes too deep in math and science, any excuse to avoid reading.

Sagar generally reads it.

Meera


Hottest Time of the Day


Twelve-year-old, Sapna, stirred the batter for the cake she wanted to bake for her eight-year-old, twins sisters' birthday. She figured out a way to make it an ice cream cake. The summer temperatures kept rising.

Her sixteen-year-old, brother, Sagar walked in, "Do little Soham and I get to lick the batter spoon and the ice cream scoop after you are done?"

Sapna scrunched up her nose, "How can I give you free licks? I waited till four so I could bake it in a cooler weather. I wish I could wear Audrey Hepburn's Tiffany sunglasses to avoid this heat. "

Sagar laughed, "Don't be silly about the sunglasses. Okay then, no licks but four is not cooler than noon, infact, it is the hottest part of the day in our part of the country."

"Says who?"

Sagar sat down and dipped a finger in the batter, "Marilyn vos Savant, the lady with the highest IQ."

Sapna gave a tap on Sagar's hand, "Hey, stop that, you'll get a piece of the cake. Tell me why four in the afternoon is not cooler than noon?"

Sagar licked his finger, "Mmm...tastes good. Well, she said that even though the Ultra Violet radiation of earth and air peaks at noon, the surface temperatures keep climbing for hours."

Sapna covered the batter with cellophane, "Well, I need the cake for tomorrow evening, I can't do it tomorrow at noon."

Sagar rinsed the spoons without licking them, "Well, the delayed heating is called thermal response and often it's the hottest around four p. m."

Sapna put the bowl in the refrigerator, "In that case I will make the cake at seven when it is definitely cooler."

Sagar said, "I'll help you then, Soham and the twins will be getting ready to sleep. Mom and dad won't be back till after midnight."

"Thanks, that would help. I need someone to wash the pots." She gave a sly smile.

Sagar shrugged it off, "No problem. Sapna, do you know recently Bill Gates poured a whole bucket of ice on himself?"

"Why? Was he feeling too hot in his mansion? Ice is cold at any time of the day or night."

Sagar said, "He did it to raise money for Lou Gehrig's Disease, ALS. I think it's a disease where progressive degeneration of motor neurons occurs."

Sapna nodded, "I feel like the twins, too many big words."

Sagar said, "The neat thing is, no one poured the ice on him."

"Huh?"

"That's right. He came up with this gadget that poured it on him."

Sapna shrugged, "Ha, big deal for a guy who thinks up these fancy computer things!"  

"Ha to you. Never mind, do you want to look it up on the computer and understand it better?"

Sapna took off her apron, "Okay, I have nothing to do except kill some time."

Sagar said, "Did you know that Monaco has the most packed population per square mile and Mongolia has only five people per square mile?"

Sapna shook her head, "Why in the world do you keep learning these useless facts?"

Sagar laughed, "Maybe, one day I'll go on Jeopardy."

Sapana also laughed, "Sure and then I'll bake you a cake. But tell me how many people does Monaco have per square mile?"

"Ha, you are curious too, Monaco has 42000. and the US has 87."

Sapna smiled, "Now we can both go on Jeopardy."

Sagar said, "While we are getting ready for Jeopardy, might as well tell you that in the 12th-century China, judges wore dark quartz lenses to hide their emotions in court. The lenses came to the US in 1929, and plastic giant Sam Foster sold the first pairs of mass-produce shades in Atlantic City."

Sapna put her fingers in her ears, "La.. la..la...la... I don't want to hear any more of your factoids."

Sagar waited till she had her fingers out and said, "And they are going to map the oceans just the way Google has done with earth."

Sapna put her fingers back in her ears, "La...la...la.. you are so annoying...la...la...la..."

Sagar laughed again and they turned on the computer.


The End


© 2014, Meera Desai Shah












1 comment:

  1. :-) We also look things up - mostly pictures for now, with a couple facts thrown in. (Minor typo: UV peaks at noon, not peeks). Also, maybe you can add in something about Gates building a machine to dump water on himself!!

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