Happy Crapper Day!

This week, my speech students are giving speeches about their personal heroes. This speech, out of all the assignments I give throughout the year (and there are a LOT), is often the most honest, the most emotional, the most touching.

A lot of my students talk about a parent or friend who has inspired them, who has always "been there" for them, or who is a constant help to them. There are always a lot of "awwwwws" from the audience, and it never fails, there's always at least one speaker who has to leave the room while giving a speech because she (it's usually a girl) is crying.

Today, my first period class gave their speeches. Again, this class was much better prepared than my other speech class, not that big a surprise. There were a lot of very heart-warming tributes to mom or dad or uncle.

One girl wrote her speech in rhyme, in which she talked about how she was her own hero. I thought that was very original--both the rhyming and the other thing. It was partly ruined, however, because she kept pronouncing heroine as "he-ROW-en," which obviously is wrong. I made a note on her grade sheet, but didn't take off points because she said it with confidence, which is often a huge stumbling block to these students. [Last year, I had a student who pronounced Wichita as "Wa-CHEET-uh," which was hilarious ... but she did say it confidently, so I just told her the proper pronunciation later.]

Without a doubt, the most entertaining speech was given by this one kid who is always over the top. His personal hero, he said, is Thomas Crapper, the inventer of the toilet, according to legend. He gave a pretty disgusting speech about how glad he is to have toilets now and what would happen if Thomas Crapper hadn't come along. He also addressed some of the more questionable parts of Crapper's biography and subsequent claim to fame, so I could tell he had done a pretty impressive amount of research.

[In related news, I fixed my toilet this weekend. It did not overflow, but the water level--when not being used, thank you--was kind of high. So I fixed it myself, because I rule.]

Interestingly, January 17 is Thomas Crapper Day (though some sources have it listed as January 27). Either way, I definitely think you should take a moment, when you're on the pot, to remember this great man and his great contribution to society. Because you could be sitting ... somewhere else; it's gross, I don't want to talk about this anymore.