Can You Hear Me Now?

[This post was first published as Can You Hear Me Now? on Technorati.]

Every Friday we have current events day in my journalism class. Students bring in news stories and we discuss interesting things going on in the world.

Some of those discussions can be pretty interesting as we attempt to make sense of the world we live in.

Take for instance an article one student brought in about a North Texas man whose smartphone supposedly exploded injuring his ear. The man needed four stitches to fix his ear, and, according to news reports, he said he planned to contact the company for some "help"  and he planned to contact an attorney as well.  I'm pretty sure all of that talk was simply code for "Give me some money, honey, or I'm suing you." 

But the article wasn't nearly as interesting as the Q&A that followed the story summary.

"Any questions or comments?" I asked the class.

"Yeah," one student said. "Why did he put his phone in his beer?"

"What?" the entire class asked.

"Why was his phone in his beer?" the student persisted.

"Why in the world are we talking about beer?" I asked.

Finally another student came to the rescue and said, "She didn't say the phone fell in his beer. She said the phone exploded in his ear."

"Oh," the confused student said, "now that makes more sense."