69, Bangkok, and other things that are hilarious to high school students

“How many people does it take to sew together a single pair of blue jeans?” I ask the audience of 500 high schoolers. It’s 8:00 AM and the fact that a bunch of hands go up is a testament to the beginning of my presentation filled with fart jokes and encounters with deadly venomous snakes. (If I ever stumble upon a farting venomous snake, I’ll have struck pay dirt. For now I work with the stories I’ve got and they seem to work pretty well.)

The guesses come: 5, 25, 8, 9…

“Let’s have one more,” I say. I point to a boy in the top row.

“69!”

The entire high school giggles like Beavis and Butthead. The sad part is that Mr. 69 won the tote! (The answer is 85.)

After the large presentation I visited a class where Bangkok warranted giggles, yet when I slipped and said, “we all need to just start giving a shit,” the entire class looked at their teacher as if he were going to send me to the principal’s office.

High schoolers: their inner thoughts are X-rated, but from 8-4 every day they live in a PG-World.

 
10 comments

Hahaha. I think I’d have to admit that even as a college senior, when 69 comes up as some sort of official number or statistic for something, I still laugh a little to myself. However, I’m glad I’ve graduated to the part of the world when it’s completely acceptable for anyone, including teachers, to use words like shit.

Kelsey says:

Alexandra, they really should give you a certificate or something when you graduate into the world of PG-13 swearing.

Gary Hyslop says:

*snickers*

Kelsey says:

Glad to see you still embrace your inner-teen.

Joel says:

I once saw the “give a sh*t” tactic used (effectively, I might add) at a chapel service of about 3000 people. The guy was talking about supporting humanitarian work in Africa, quoted a number about how many children would die before his talk was over, and then said, “And most of you don’t give a sh*t. And the really sad thing is, you care more about the fact that I just said ‘sh*t’ than about those children.” It was years ago and I still remember. There’s also a song by a Derek Webb, a Christian recording artist, where he does the same basic thing in the lyrics. Did you get any flak from the teacher? (P.S. – Where’s the ‘subscribe to comments’ checkbox??)

Kelsey says:

Joel, That is awesome. Thanks for sharing. I didn’t get any flak from the teacher. I don’t know where the subscribe comment button is!!!! I tried to add it before. Having a custom made blog is cool, but it’s not always the easiest thing to tweak.

Let your voice be heard!

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