In Rex We Trust

It's no secret that I love my husband Rex.  It's also pretty obvious that I think he's super smart, totally amazing, and I have a lot of faith in him.  The problem comes when I have a little TOO much faith in him....such as the time I put his intelligence to the test in front of my entire advanced English class.

It was an average vocabulary lesson.  I was teaching my students their Greek and Latin root words for the week (it's really important to have a basic understanding of Greek and Latin in order to better understand English).  One of our words for this week is "brevis."  It is Latin for "short."  I asked my students who in the class wanted to be doctors.  Many raised their hands.  I then said, "Well, you'd better learn this word then, because everyone in any sort of medical field will know what 'brevis' means.  You just have to know it if you want to be a doctor."  I was 99% sure I'd heard Rex say that word while studying with his friends....so I was pretty sure my assurance of its medical importance was true.

The students looked at me skeptically.  I'm not sure they realize the importance of Greek and Latin vocabulary words.  To reinforce my point, I boldly declared, "My husband's in school to be a doctor.  I guarantee you that he knows what it means!"  I then PULLED OUT MY PHONE to call him and prove my point (at this point you should be thinking, "Really, Christine?!  REALLY?!").  The students were obviously totally into this.  They love when I improvise, and especially when I call people during class for some educational reason (who says I  can't have a guest speaker via speakerphone?). Plus, who doesn't jump at the chance that their teacher might end up proving themselves wrong?

Anyway, I blasted the speaker phone so that the whole class could hear.  As soon as the phone started ringing, my brain caught up with me and I thought, "Oh crap.  What if he doesn't know what brevis means?!?"  Surely my intelligent husband would know a sixth grade Latin vocabulary word....right?  Rex answered the phone by asking nervously, "Are you okay?!"  Oops...I guess it's weird for me to call him in the middle of when I'm supposed to be teaching.  Oh well.  I soldiered on:  "Hey Rex, I'm fine. I'm just here with my English class.  We're studying Greek and Latin root words, and I told them that 'brevis' is an important word for anyone going into the medical field to know.  I figured since you were going into the medical field...perhaps you would know it?"

I held my breath and mentally crossed my fingers for good luck.  I didn't have to wait long, though, because my super-intelligent husband didn't even skip a beat before answering, "Of course.  It means 'short.'"  I mentally sighed a huge sigh of relief, but outwardly I just gave my students a smug look that clearly said, "See?  I TOLD you anyone in the medical field would know it!"  I pressed my luck even further: "So Rex, where in your field would you say that you have used the word 'brevis'?"  He started rattling off lots of medical terminology that none of my students or I understood.  I just mouthed "He's really smart," while pointing to my head so that the students would know what I was saying.  I finally asked him to narrow down the brevis topics to just one so that we could have a bonus word on the vocab test.  He told me to use "abductor pollicus brevis."  It's a muscle in your thumb, and you can remember that brevis means "short" because any muscle in your thumb is short.  Brilliant.

My students obviously loved this.  They have started using "abductor pollicus brevis" instead of the word "thumb."  If you go to the lunchroom in Quest Academy, you may hear a couple of students challenging each other to an "abductor pollicus brevis war."  If someone does something really cool, one of their friends might say, "Two abductus pollicus brevi up, yo!"  It sounds really nerdy, but it's funny and I love it.

We were doing a vocab review today, and no one forgot what brevis meant.  Perhaps it's not such a bad thing for me to trust in Rex after all.  He's smart, and he's got my back.  I would have looked pretty idiotic if he didn't know the word, but oh well.  All's well that ends well, right?