A Dumb Conversation

I love dumb conversations, the kind that are just silly nonsense. I had one with one of my fifth grade students the other day.

"Mr. R.! Look at this! What is it?"

I looked at Gregg and he was pointing at his finger. "That's your finger!"

"No, not there! Here!"

I looked and he wasn't pointing at his finger. To be precise, he was pointing at the spot between two fingers on his left hand. "That is the space between your two fingers."

"No! Look closely. What is this, Mr. R.?"

I put on my reading glasses and lowered my head very close to his hand. Taking his hand in mine, I turned his hand slowly and carefully, and putting it in just the right light I was able to see a tiny speck of what looked like skin that was whiter than the rest of his hand and probably felt like a microscopic bump. It was about the size a small pimple would be if the pimple was on a BB and the BB was a human head. I was really proud I was able to even locate this minuscle imperfection. I looked up at Gregg and he asked, "What is that, Mr. R.?"

Now this "thing" needed to be put in its proper perspective. That meant eliminating it as even a topic of conversation for two intelligent human males, but then I'm not a normal human male, and neither is Gregg. "Well Gregg, it looks like a banoteur."

"What's a banoteur?"

"A banoteur is the spot where a banshee bit you in the middle of the night."

Gregg paused to reflect on this and then said, "AWESOME!!"