[chuddo]

senior year of highschool, i heard one of the dumbest exchanges that is still a favorite story of mine to tell when this topic comes up.

the class was some current issues filler class that everyone tried to take because the teacher was pretty easy going. he was a good guy and he seemed fairly intelligent regarding cultural issues but...

he had no concept of what the number "billion" really meant. he was thoroughly convinced that one billion = a million million, instead of a mere thousand million.

one day he is speaking about how ludicrously wealthy bill gates is, and decides to put it into context for the class.

Mr. J: "bill gates is so rich, he is worth 80 billion dollars. this means he could give every single living american 1 million dollars, and still have 76 billion left for himself."

class idiots: "woah, well why doesn't he do that then?!"

mr j: "because then....a loaf of bread would cost.... one hundred thousand dollars."

class: "woah" blah blah

dumb girl: "i aint paying that much for no bread!