A Bite of Chalk

Since I've mentioned urban legends at least in passing in the last two posts, I thought I would write one more about my personal experience with apparently creating a mild urban legend. Perhaps urban legend isn't the proper term, since it is only a story amongst a handful of students, but I still find it interesting how my own actions became distorted to make a better story.

I occasionally eat chalk in the classroom. OK, I don't actually eat chalk. But I palm a candy lick-it-stick that looks like chalk. I write on the chalk board with chalk, and then secretly switch the chalk and the candy. I pause, look at the "chalk", take a bite, and then go back to writing on the chalkboard with the chalk that I switch back into my hand. There is no reason to do this other than entertainment. I do it early in the semester to try to introduce some humor into the class and lighten the load. I also enjoy the response of the students. Many aren't sure what they saw. They rarely say anything, rather they just look somewhat dumbfounded. I eventually reveal the trick and there is much relieved laughter.

I've been doing this for around ten years now. Recently some students were talking about it, and they mentioned that they heard one time I messed up and actually ate the real chalk instead of the candy. Apparently this story is circulating. It makes for a good story--the professor's trick backfiring on himself. The picture of the professor spitting out chalk when he was trying to be clever is quite funny. It is also entirely false. I have never made that mistake. But apparently it is now part of the lore about the chalk-eating stunt.

I wonder how such distortions arise. Does someone knowingly make up a lie? Or does someone say "what if one time..." and then later the "what if" gets lost? Does it somehow become a bigger story by the small incremental embellishments that we all make when telling a story? Once the change is made and believed to be true, I can readily see why it would spread--it is a good story. However it arose, it is a good example of how easily a story changes. We need to remember that the next time you hear about a UFO or a ghost or a dramatic coincidence or any of the many other extraordinary stories we hear. If there are two versions of a story, one true and commonplace and one false and entertaining, the entertaining one is the one that will be repeated.