I didn’t want to see the stupid race-car movie. I wanted to see the
movie about the beavers. I’d really been hyping up Beavers in my
brain: thinking about beavers, talking about beavers, performing an
original one-woman preenactment of Mr. Beaver and Mrs. Beaver talking
to each other in British accents. “‘Ello, Mrs. Beaver!” “Good morning,
‘usband! Would you loik to chew on sticks and wood for
breakfast?” “Capital! Cheerio! Oi’ll do the ‘ishes!” “Oi love
living underwater with you as mammals, Mr. Beaver.” Kersploosh!
But nooooooo. Instead, my friend just had to cure a whole salmon in
his refrigerator, so I just had to go to his house and eat bagels, and
then my friends and I just had to watch the ruinous trailer for
Beverly Hills Chihuahua—and all the crying and holding one
another that ensued made me four minutes late for Beavers.
There is no late seating at the IMAX. My only option was to wait
an hour for the beaver crowd to clear out and Super Speedway: Racing
with the Andrettis to begin.
Let me tell you something about being a grown-up alone at the
Science Center: YOU ARE CREEPY. I don’t care how interested you are in
centrifugal force and photosynthesis and dinos—if you are an
adult walking around the Science Center by yourself, something’s gone
wrong. Here’s another thing I learned at the Science Center: Kids don’t
learn fuck about science. I tried to find out how to clone a sheep from
a display where you press some buttons in a sequence and a mad
scientist yells at you. I was only on step two when a kid came up and
started smashing all the buttons at once, turning cranks and jiggling
levers in a frenzy. That kid wasn’t listening to the mad scientist.
Now neither of us knows how to make clones.
Science taunted me at the naked-mole-rats exhibit (“Naked mole rats
can close their lips behind their front teeth. Try it.”), and taught me
what a can of soda weighs on other planets. (Dear self: Remember not to
bring Diet Coke on trip to the sun. That shit is heavy.) It was all
medium-boring.
But not as boring as the movie. The thing about car racing is that
it’s impossible to care about. I mean, aerodynamics are kind of
interesting, and Mario Andretti does say some amusing nonsense: “If
the modern racing car were an animal, it would be an invertebrate” (what?). But what do I care if the Andretti family maintains its title
as Italian-American People Who Are Better Than Other People At Driving
Pointy Cars Very Fast? As I see it, there’s only one way to make race
cars interesting: TEACH BEAVERS TO DRIVE. 
