This Calculus Book Alone Could Save Your Life

Many a time people ask me as I am tutoring.... "When the (insert expletive of your choice here) am I EVER going to use this?" Last week we all found out. Not in the traditional way mind you, but in a way that everyone who has ever lugged a version of the book already knows. That thing could stop a bullet for you.

In the tutoring lab an older man came into the lab with a loaded gun in his fanny pack. He dropped said fanny pack and the gun discharged as it hit the floor. The bullet went through the table and up through about HALF of our rather ponderous calculus book. The angle of the bullet would have hit the girl who was innocently studying away, right in the face if the book had not taken one for the team. Literally the book saved her life. I was not in there at the time as I had just gotten out of my own calculus class after working in the lab in morning. Good thing he had a latter class I guess :)

We math tutors are doing what all good government employees would do, we are making jokes. Jokes because the whole thing is so surreal and of course no one - barring the heroic book - was hurt.

The phrase "The Calculus Book Alone Could Save Your Life" may end up being shirts. My math professor came up with it and I think it is brilliant.

The other many funny phrases such as "Dodge a bullet, come see a math tutor before your next test!" will be vetoed for posting by a very concerned administration.

So forgive me if I have been lagging on the posts, many more to come.