The Roots of the Equation

My coworker, the history teacher, is teaching the Renaissance right now, and she used me as an example of a Renaissance Man. That day, in every class, they came in, “Mr. Cleveland! Ms. Bradford said you are a Renaissance man! Mr. Cleveland! You’re a humanist!”

In one of the classes, one of the students told another they were drinking toilet water. I told them that all water is toilet water, since toilet water is just tap water. When they asked why they can’t drink it, I said that it’s only because of touching the bowl, but that if they wanted, they could drink the water in the tank and, in fact, if there was some catastrophe where they needed drinking water and couldn’t get it, that would be an excellent place to get some. “Wow, you really are a Renaissance man! Do you know…how long the school is? In inches?” Sure kid, 3408 inches. (Nice how such a specific number makes it sound really accurate.)

One of my sections, though, did not believe it, because I had previously told that that all teachers lie. (That came after several “My middle school teacher said you can’t do that!” “Well, actually….”)