Planning for disaster

I was volunteering at my son's school library today and got to watch the librarian videotaping the kindergartners. I'd like to report that she was videotaping them singing or dancing or putting on a little play, but no; she was videotaping them for security purposes. Each one had to come in, individually, stand before the camera, and repeat after the librarian their name, address, age, height, eye color and hair color. Then they had to turn to the side and tuck their hair behind their ears for a good profile shot. Some of them posed for the camera as though they were at a fashion shoot, some of them had trouble pronouncing their own complicated names, some of them had the video equivalent of stage fright, and one little boy had a bad case of the giggles throughout the entire process. They were a charming bunch, but the fun of watching them was dimmed by the knowledge that these tapes were being made in case they suddenly disappeared. The librarian told me that in addition to fingerprinting and videotaping, our district is also collecting DNA samples from the kiddies. Fortunately, the little ones didn't seem to have a clue that what they were doing was planning for disaster. Nice to be a kid and not have to read the news.