Sideswipe
Kids are weird
“My friend teaches in a primary school (ages 7-8). One day this little boy comes in, is uncharacteristically quiet all morning, and just before break time bursts into tears. Huge sobbing mess. There are some emotional kids in the class but this is not one of them — usually a bright happy little boy, lots of friends, no family trouble . . . My friend asks him what’s wrong and he says, ‘My dad died last night’. He gives a detailed account, in tears, of how his dad didn’t come home and later his mum came in to talk to him and told him his dad had been killed. Teacher is horrified and sends a classroom assistant to reception to call the boy’s mother to ask if this is true and how they can help the child, while she herself stays to comfort her pupil, who is inconsolable. After getting over the shock she starts to think the story doesn’t make sense: why would the kid be in school if his father had just been killed? She says to the boy, gently, ‘Um, [name], this wasn’t a dream by any chance, was it?’ Kid stops crying and thinks for a few seconds, then says, ‘Oh yeah, I think it was actually’ and immediately starts eating his snack and chatting with his friends happily like nothing ever happened.” (Via reddit.com)
Did you know . . .
In its January 1988 issue, Cosmopolitan ran a feature claiming that women had almost no reason to worry about contracting HIV long after the best available medical science indicated otherwise. The piece claimed that unprotected sex with an HIV-positive man did not put women at risk of infection and went on to state that “most heterosexuals are not at risk” and that it was impossible to transmit HIV in the missionary position. This article angered many knowledgeable people, including AIDS and gay rights activists and protests were organised in response.
Where’d that phrase come from?
Raining cats and dogs (raining heavily): No one knows the precise source of this 17th century expression, but the most probable source is the fact that dead animals and other debris were sometimes washed up in the streets after heavy rain. By the way, don’t step in a poodle.