Little Johnny comes home from school looking unusually serious, dragging his backpack behind him. His father notices right away that something is wrong.
“What’s the matter, Johnny?” his father asks.
“I got an F in arithmetic today,” Johnny says quietly.
“An F?” his father replies in shock. “How did that happen?”
“Well,” Johnny explains, “the teacher asked me, ‘How much is 2×3?’ and I said ‘6.’”
“That’s the right answer,” his father says.
“I know,” Johnny nods. “But then she asked me, ‘How much is 3×2?’”
The father frowns. “That’s the same thing.”
“That’s exactly what I told her,” Johnny says. “I said if you know one, you know the other. But she still marked it wrong.”
The father shakes his head. “That doesn’t seem fair at all.”
“And then,” Johnny continues, “she asked me, ‘What’s the difference between 5 and 7?’”
“So what did you say?” his father asks.
“I said ‘Two,’” Johnny answers.
“That’s correct again,” the father says, even more confused.
“Yeah,” Johnny sighs. “But she said I was being a smart mouth.”
The father rubs his temples. “Unbelievable.”
Johnny shrugs. “And right before the bell rang, she asked, ‘Who made that awful noise in class?’”
“And what did you tell her?” his father asks carefully.
Johnny looks up and says, “I told her it was the same person who keeps asking the same question in different ways.”
