We Have A Diagnosis

Mr. M was supposed to be on our trivia team Saturday night. It was $100 per table, and we thought we had 10 people. Eight of us showed up, with Mr. M and friend being among the missing. We paid our money, and told the trivia-runners that we were expecting two more. When we first arrived, I asked my teammies which one was going to inquire as to whether Mr. M had something up his butt. You know, because that's what a disgruntled student told me. They had a good laugh at that, but there were no takers to ascertain the health of Mr. M's posterior. And Mr. I wanted to know if the kid said that HE had something up HIS butt. I assured him that she was indeed talking about Mr. M, but secretly wondered if Mr. I truly held some contraband in his nether region, what with making it all about HIM.

When he didn't arrive, I chalked it up to Mr. M having something up his butt. "You know, I hear that it's hard to move around with something up your butt. That would surely cause someone to run late." Only nine chairs fit comfortably at our table. One was set off to the side, along the trophy case. "That can be Mr. M's chair. He might prefer not to be crammed in with us, since he could already be feeling a little crammed with that something up his butt." But when Mr. M and his lady-friend arrived, Mr. M carried that chair around the table over his head, and scooched it right up with the rest of us.

Between rounds, I leaned over the #1 son to ask Mr. M the burning question. Since nobody else would do the deed. "Last week, a student told me that you had something up your butt. Are you all right?" Mr. M eyed me for a minute.

"WHO said that?"
I'm not telling you WHO, because you will retaliate.
Was it music appreciation or concert choir?
I'm not telling you that so you can narrow it down.
Boy or girl?
I'm not telling. You will use your powers of deduction.
Well, several of them have been crying all week.
I'm surprised you weren't the one crying, with that something up your butt.
I don't have anything up my butt.
OK. If you say so.

While I wasn't minding him, since I was too busy recording the answers for our winning trivia performance, the #1 son gave Mr. M enough clues to deduce the disgruntled. I didn't find out until the ride home. I scolded #1 soundly. "But Mom! All I told him was that she wasn't in music appreciation, because I didn't want the freshmen being blamed, and then he said 'Alto or soprano?' and I said she wasn't a soprano, so he doesn't know WHO said it, because there are three altos!" Great. Narrow it down to three people from 60 people, and expect Mr. M not to guess the right one. "But Mom! I only improved his odds by 80%!" Spoken like a true mathlete. And traitor. I need to corral Mr. M and warn him that if he retaliates against the disgruntled, I will put in the announcements that Mr. M will be absent next week because he is having surgery to have something removed from his butt.

During the intermission, Mr. M got up to fetch a beverage for his lady-friend. One of the eleventy-hundred basketball-bouncing urchins who had spent the evening running amuck threw a basketball at Mr. M's butt. It bounced off. When Mr. M returned with the lady-beverage, I said, "Now we have proof." Mr. M replied, "I DO feel so much better now that that basketball fell out of my butt."

Because he was a good sport, I didn't bring up the issue of Mr. M holding students hostage in his classroom, or farming them out begging for batteries like his own personal UNICEF squad.