(In music class, we have just finished watching The Sound Of Music. Our teacher pauses to movie to explain to us what happened to the family afterwards.)
Teacher: “So, two of the children died while they were traveling on the mountain. But, [Main Character] and [Her Husband] had several other children afterwards.”
Student: “So, when they had kids, did they do it on the mountain?”
Teacher: “I’m… not going to answer that.”
(I overhear this conversation:)
Student #1: “Who is your favorite Beatle?”
Student #2: “Isn’t that a type of car?”
This story is part of our Beatles roundup!
(Our choir is conducted by a very intelligent and capable person who responds well to questions. One day…)
Conductor: “[My Name], you looked concerned during rehearsal. Did you have a question?”
Me: “Oh, don’t mind me. It is nothing.”
Conductor: “Is it about the music?”
Me: “Yeah, actually. The score translates the Latin as ‘I will proclaim your glory.’ But the verb is third person singular in the future tense and refers to the word for mouth that is its antecedent. So there’s no way it means ‘I will proclaim your glory.’ It has to say ‘the mouth will proclaim your glory,’ referring back to ‘open my mouth, lord.’”
(After a flabbergasted moment in which the conductor seems to not know how to respond to my grammar obsession, another student pipes up.)
Student: “Don’t feel bad. She took three years of Latin.”
Back in the early 2000s, my mother used to host day trips through our local community college, meant for people in their 60s and above. If there are more than 10 people, she asks me to drive the college’s second van, since I work for the college as well, and have had the safety course. We’re almost to our destination point when we miss our turn off, and are forced to leave the highway to take an underpass. However, at the red light, I get separated from her.
She calls me on my cell phone to give me directions. Unbeknownst to me, my brother has changed my usual ringtone from a generic ring to “Kyle’s Mom is a Big Fat B****” from South Park. The song floods the small van. What’s worse is, because I’m driving, I can’t stop the phone ringing, I can’t pick up, and I can only sit there in horror as the song stops… then picks up again.
I hurriedly stop, grab my phone during the third call to answer my mom, and get safely to our destination. As my group, all elderly women, exits the vehicle, one of them says, “I’m going to pray for you,” and refuses to ride back with me on the trip home. Years later, and I still slap my brother upside the head when I think about it.
(My school is putting on the musical “Hairspray” in theater class. One of the songs that we have just been going over is “I Can Hear the Bells.”)
Me: “What time is it?”
Classmate: “One minute until we leave.”
Me: “I guess we really will be hearing the bells.”
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