When I was in high school, a senior, I finally had time in my busy schedule for the Academic Decathlon, ten brain-busting-for-fun events including things like math, music, art, literature, and (the year I was in it) the Global Economy.

We won at the local level, and got to go to State.

Well.

Before we went, we got lectured by Ms. McKinney, the supervisor of the club (and the Gifted & Talented teacher) on the Rules, and that it was important to adhere to them lest we hurt someone or ourselves, and especially lest we become disqualified through breakage of the rules. To reinforce this, she brought up some of the exploits of past students.


One of the Rules was, Don't throw anything out the windows of the hotel. That was there as a safety rule, of course. An object falling accelerates at a speed, blah blah blah, and of course dropping something hard from up high could hurt or seriously kill people.

Normal students would of course have accepted this for safety reasons and gone on without breaking the rule, or would have disregarded it and the safety of anyone below.

Not so with the Acadeca crowd. Recall that this is a crowd of ... nine? Ten? Twelve? of the brightest students in the high school. One of the guys thought about this long and hard, and reasoned that, well, birds fly higher than this building, right? And no one's ever been killed by falling guano, right?

So, he opens up the window, and squeezes out some toothpaste.


All would have been good, except for the intersection of the toothpaste with the lady with the fur coat walking below...


His parents paid the cleaning bill. The team was disqualified.