(In my music class, the teacher has a very strong hate for smoking, mainly because singing as a career can be ruined because of smoking. One day, the teacher asks for famous singers who died because of their smoking.)

Me: “Nat King Cole.”

Teacher: “Who?”

Me: “Nat King Cole? The guy who sang The Christmas Song, Orange Colored Sky, Night Lights, and Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow?”

Teacher: “Never heard of him. Must’ve not been famous.”

(I am going to band class. We have a substitute teacher none of us have met yet.)

Substitute Teacher: “Okay, class, we will be going to the computer lab to do band work.”

Class: “What about the stuff on the board?”

Substitute Teacher: “That is nothing.”

(Being an annoyingly curious lot, we ask her how she knows this.)

Substitute Teacher: “I have a paper right here.”

(We go to the computer lab and do the music work. The next day, we ask the teacher what was on the board.)

Teacher: “What? That was your work! Why didn’t you do it?”

Class: “We were told to do something else. The sub said that a paper told her to do it. “

Teacher: “What paper?”

Class: “That one.”

(The teacher looked at it. Guess what? It was BLANK. Our teacher never hired that sub again.)

(I am watching a music video countdown show. A video by a hip hop artist who has just made it big is playing.)

Grandma: “Who is that?”

Me: *looks up from something else to the video, no artist or song is displayed* “I dunno. I haven’t seen it before.”

Grandma: “Then how is she famous?”

Me: “What?”

Grandma: “How can she be famous if no one knows who she is?”

Me: “Grandma, we’re hardly everyone, the two of us.”

Grandma: *mumbles something under her breath as she storms out of the room*

My younger brother was born with a condition called ectrodactylism (missing fingers and/or toes). Thus, he has only three fingers on his right hand and four on his left. The first Sunday we went to church after he was born, one of the regulars, a piano teacher, came up to my parents to check out the newest member of our family. She took one look at my brother and said to my mom, “I want to teach him piano some day.”

Years later, when my brother was old enough, he started taking piano lessons from her. She made special scale sheets for him, chose songs specific to his abilities, and modified songs so he could play them. He went on to take several piano exams, and scored very well on them, too. To this day, he is a beautiful piano player.

It still brings tears to my eyes to think about my piano teacher’s reaction when she saw my brother for the first time. She obviously believed everyone should have the gift of music, and felt immediately inspired to teach this little guy with missing fingers how to play.

(My mother is listening to Billy Joel’s song “Captain Jack.” The lyrics seem to suggest that “Captain Jack” is some sort of drug. Since my mother’s been listening to Billy Joel forever, I figure she’d know about the song’s meaning:)

Me: “What is Captain Jack?”

Mother: “I don’t know; I was going to ask you.”

Me: “Is that what they mean when they say, ‘Talk to your kids about drugs’?”