Really Deep Thoughts

My student B. is sitting next to me, waiting as I check the polynomial she has just factored.

“Oh . . . there’s my neighbor.  Her husband just died.  But she looks happy,” B. says, looking out the dining room window at a large woman with thinning hair, laughing out loud as she walks down the sidewalk.

“She has three sons.  So . . . there is no shortage of men or anything.”

I shoot her a quizzical look, she continues.

“I mean, I know it’s different . . . you know what I mean.  I’m just trying to look at the bright side of things.  One less mouth to feed.”

Now my quizzical look turns to comical dismay.  Sleep-deprived thirteen year olds say the darnedest things.

“Balloons and banjos.  And sunflowers.  That’s what I want at my funeral,” she says.

Now I smile at her, pass her solution back to her and tear a small piece off a sheet of our scratch paper.

“I’m going to write that down,” I say.

“What?  As if you’re going to need that information any time soon?”

“No . . . because I like it and I want to remember it.  Balloons . . . and banjos . . .”

“And sunflowers,” she adds, “although it doesn’t fit.”

“Right. It’s not alliterative like the other two.  Do you know what alliteration is?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.  And sunflowers.”  I finish writing the phrase, fold the paper into fourths and put it in my back pocket.

“Now try sixty-four x squared minus ninety-six x plus thirty-six.”