Tag Archive: high school


A Key Question

Filed under: Skepticality, Stories by Reader Submission — 4 Comments
March 26, 2013

(Submitted by reader John Meuser)

I grew up on a farm in a rural community in Indiana.

The high school I went to had been consolidated from several small town schools in the area, so almost all students were bused in being picked up from houses which were widespread. Even though our house was only about 15 miles from the school, it took about an hour for the daily commute. Pretty much all students get their driver’s license as soon as possible so that they don’t have to go through this lengthy process every day.

My younger brother is mentally handicapped so was unable to get his license at the same time all of his friends did, but my parents didn’t want him to miss out, so they allowed him to drive an off-road utility vehicle, best described as a large golf-cart, to school every day. The brand was Cushman, but I have no idea of the model. He probably had a longer commute than if he rode the bus, but my brother loved the independence.

He also had problems with the combination padlocks on the lockers, so the school allowed him to use a padlock which takes a key. This is a very rural area where no one locks their doors, so the only two keys that my brother ever carried were the key to his locker and the key to his Cushman. He was unlocking his locker one morning, and realized that he had accidentally gotten the two keys mixed up, but was surprised to find that both keys were completely interchangeable. His Cushman key could unlock his locker and vice versa. What are the odds that the only two locks in the world that my brother needed to use took the exact same key?

Below would be the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in Skepticality Episode 204. But as you may know from the podcast, the most Barbara could share is that she’s had a similar experience. This one’s just too tricky, and requires too much specialized knowledge, for her to assist.

So that’s where you, our faithful, generous, and brilliant readers/listeners come in. Do you know anything about the elements of this story that could help us solve this question? Are you, perhaps, a Cushman enthusiast? A locksmith? A trivia know-it-all who found a Cushman manual in a library and read it front to back in hopes that one day a Jeopardy answer would hang in the balance? Whatever the case, if you’ve got info, we want it. Please comment below the story and let us know what you think we need to know. There will be fame and fortune in it for you. Also, probably neither of those things.

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The Mischief Makers

Filed under: Stories by Reader Submission — 2 Comments
August 9, 2012

(Submitted by anonymous reader)

Toward the end of summer vacation after my junior year of high school, I was sitting at home, and thought about one of my friends that I hadn’t seen or talked to since the school year had ended. Scott and I weren’t especially close friends, so while we hung out together in school, we only interacted outside of school a couple times a year, usually during the school year. Something had come up that I thought might interest him (I no longer remember what it was), so I dug up his phone number and gave him a call. His mom answered (this was before any but the most spoiled and rich high school kids had cell phones) and told me that he was out with friends. She said she’d have him call me back when he got home.

About half an hour later, my doorbell rang. I went to the door, and there was Scott! Naturally, my first thought was that he happened to talk to his parents and they told him that I had called, so he stopped by before coming home, but no, he had no idea that I had called. He was stopping by because he and some of his other friends were out doing some mischief around town. When they got to one of the corners on Harris Road, Scott apparently thought of me, since that’s my last name. He and his friends took the sign down and tossed it in their trunk. When they parted ways to go home, Scott came by my house to give me my street sign.

I thought of something that would interest a friend that I almost never interacted with outside of school, and who I hadn’t seen at all in about two months at the same time as he thought of something that would interest me (a personalized street sign). The odds of this happening are probably pretty much incalculable, but they’re definitely pretty crazy!

[EDITOR: This is a perfect example of one of those simple moments that catches us by surprise. Granted, this one included a misdemeanor.]

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Distant Check-Ins

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February 21, 2012

(Submitted by reader Brian U)

When I was a kid in high school in the San Fernando Valley, there was a restaurant that was open 24 hours that was a favorite hangout for kids out late. That was 35 years ago and I have since moved away — 3,000 miles away, actually.

Since the advent of social media I have since re-connected with a lot of my old high school buddies, and a couple of times a month one of them will “check-in” at the old place, and it will post to their status and I will see it.

So, it didn’t strike me as odd when I saw such a check-in from the same place one day, until I looked at it more closely and discovered it wasn’t one of my high-school friends, it was one of my neighbors.

It was the first time I ever saw a check-in from him, and it was at at the old haunt, 3000 miles away. Turns out he was on a business trip, got in late and saw the place open and stopped in for some food.

[EDITOR: Seeing worlds collide in social media is always odd, and more so when people you know connect with favorite haunts. But it's the extenuating circumstances of situations like this that really grab you. Of course the least his neighbor could have done is bring back a burger, or something...]

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Ouija know it?

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August 7, 2011

(Submitted by reader Thomas F)

One time in high school I was at a friend’s house on a Sunday and we were sitting around bored when out-of-the-blue, completely unprompted, I said, “Let’s do the Ouija Board.”  We got it out and it seemed unusually responsive so we began asking more than ‘yes or no’ questions like everybody’s birthday, etc. and the board was nailing it.

Side note:  (Now personally, even as a kid, I wondered if people were subtly influencing the Ouija Board with their fingertips so something would happen and they could get the answers they wanted. I didn’t know of the word ‘ideomotor’ yet.)

Anyway, a mutual friend stopped by with his new girlfriend of 2 days and introduced her to everyone.  They saw what we were doing and she (Debbie) suggested we ask it her middle name since there was no way we could know it.  The board very responsively spelled out S-U-E.  Her jaw dropped and she screamed out, “Oh, my God, I don’t believe that, Sue is my middle name!!”  Then she pulled out her driver’s license and verified it.

Still haven’t figured that one out yet.

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It takes a licking…

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July 14, 2011

(Submitted by reader Donald Chesebro)

Last Monday was my first day of work at a new job.  I decided to wear an old Timex analog watch that I’ve had since high school, but which I haven’t worn in years (although, like the ads, it indeed keeps on ticking).  When I put it on, I pulled the pin to set the time, but when I looked at the watch face, the time on the watch was 8:11 a.m.  The presumably correct time on my cell phone was 8:11 a.m.  (The day and date did need to be changed, though.)

EDITED 6/25/2012

[EDITOR: An especially simple story, but funny nonetheless. But what are the odds? There are a few factors to account for. Obviously one could argue the watch kept exceptionally good time, but as the date needed to be changed, we can assume it was, indeed, running fast or slow during the years it wasn't in use. While a typical quartz watch IS capable of being accurate enough to lose/gain only 5-25 seconds per YEAR, it's quite reasonable for them to be quite a bit further off than that due to a variety of issues. So assuming we have no way to directly predict the exact accuracy, or lack thereof, of this watch's crystal, we're left to assume this element's unpredictable.

So that leaves us with the mere chance of its seemingly-random time lining up perfectly, on the day Donald decided to use the watch, with the actual time. Since there are 1440 minutes in a day, and as analog watches ignore AM/PM cycles, it appears that we're left with as low as a 1-in-720 chance that the minutes would line up.

Although what's not accounted for is that the watch may still have been many seconds slow or fast, leaving him to catch the time at the exact right moment, only for them to become out of sync within seconds. So a worst-case scenario, with the watch fast or slow by a full 59 seconds, leaves us with 2 seconds out of 86,400 in a day to line up, or a 1-in-43,200 chance.Still, he'd be unlikely to note the time as 8:11 at a glance if the margin was that tight, so we're probably at a worst-case window of maybe 15 seconds, or a 1-in-5760 chance of this occurring.

So our end result here is certainly well within reasonable enough odds when you consider the huge number of people who must reset various old watches every day, but still a welcome surprise to Donald when he likely could use the spare moments while prepping for his new job. - Jarrett "Please Correct My Math" Kaufman]

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