Amputation

A student asked to see the school nurse today for a rash on his arm. He was back soon, with a smiley-faced note: “Unknown tubular skin disturbance. Possible amputation required.”

“Class,” I said soberly, putting down The Wind in the Willows. “We have a problem we need to deal with. We need to amputate C’s arm. C, come up here and lie down on a desk.”

He came up and lay down on the floor.

“I need a sharp cutting instr…. Oh, here are my keys and my nail clippers,” I said. The rest of the students began flocking forward.

“You hold the keys here,” I said to another student, placing them in his hand right above C’s arm. “I’ll push them down with my foot.”

The excitement that tensed the air as I lifted my foot over the keys was answered, when I then merely stepped onto the floor beside the arm and reached down to retrieve my keys, with chuckled groans of convincingly real disappointment.