The Challenged

My school's "mascot" is the Challenger space shuttle. This totally kills Babak, who adamantly insists that it is wrong to have a school mascot that, well, blew up into a million pieces.

But, still, we are the Kirkpatrick Challengers and I have this snazzy t-shirt from our local t-shirt shop that says "Kirkpatrick Challengers" on it with a big ol' space shuttle in the middle. Every week I wear it, and every week Babak reminds me of how wrong and how amusing this all is to him. A while back, he took to wondering if the children knew that the Challenger had exploded. No, of course not... I certainly never tell them. I mean, despite the fact that I am generally okay with the Challenger mascot, I don't know what kind of impact it would have on a 9 year old to tell them the thing blew up. So I don't tell.

Well, as it turns out, today I realized why the kids REALLY have no clue what's up with the Challenger. It was picture day, and Markelia took full advantage of being allowed out of uniform. She was dressed head to toe in this perfectly coordinated black and yellow ensemble, so I told her she looked like a bumblebee. Markelia took one look at my shirt, sporting the space shuttle, and goes, "That's right, Mrs. Airplane!"

Aaaaaand, as it turns out, they've thought it was an airplane allllll along......