I really tried not to laugh.

I do lunch duty almost every day.  I got into the habit at a school with an incredibly fractured faculty because reminding kids to clean up after themselves was infinitely better than listening to teachers bitch and moan, and getting in the occasional argument with one that didn’t see eye-to-eye with me.  The habit has stuck with me despite having very cohesive faculties at 4 out of the 5 last schools I’ve taught at, mainly because it’s a good way to interact with my students outside of the structure of the classroom.

At lunch today I noticed a student that had casts on both of his lower arms. 

Me: “What happened?”
Him: “I broke both my arms.”
Me: “How?”
Him: “I fell down the stairs.”
Me: “Where?”
Him: “At home.”
Me: “How?”
Him: “I tripped.”
Me: “Over what?”
Him: “My own foot.”

Now in his defense, as I later learned, he had just gone through such an intense growth spurt that he had been put in a back brace because of the strain it was putting on his spine.  Which makes it understandable why he had a hard time dealing with his own feet.

But it still took all my energy to keep from laughing when he first said “My own foot.”