Math professor wards off vamp with 2nd Edition Calculus book.
Ask any young man on the street the best ways of turning the undead and he will give you an easy half dozen. Most of them are common knowledge: garlic, holy water, a cross, a stake, silver, sunlight.
But last night a professor at one of the local colleges found out it wasn’t the Holy Bible that came to his rescue; it was an Introduction to Calculus book that warded off the blood-sucking demon. According to “Marlin Hatch”, associate professor in the Mathematics Department at BCU, he was grading mid-terms until after midnight in his office when the attack occurred. At first he thought the flapping at his window was no more than a bird seeking shelter for the night. When he went to investigate, however, he noticed a man standing on the roof directly adjacent to his window.
At first Prof. “Hatch,” who teaches two calculus sections along with several programming classes, thought the man might be a student playing a prank.
“It’s not that unusual,” commented one of the school’s custodians, “Fraternities and sororities have pledges doing all sorts of goofy things during ‘Pledge Week’.”
Not surprisingly, Prof. “Hatch” believed the man to be a student involved in a “rush” duty. As any local can tell you, all of the colleges have special days set aside for the Greek activities to fulfill a pledge’s quota.
Prof. “Hatch”, however, was not amused by the man’s presence. He opened the window to say something to the student, and that was his first mistake.
“Apparently,” Prof. “Hatch” later quipped to a reliable source, “An open window is an invitation.”
Then, according to the same source, the professor said the man flew at him with incredible speed. Naturally, the professor was frozen in terror as the man came at him, mouth open, fangs bared.
Professor “Hatch” then grabbed the nearest object he could find, no doubt to use it to defend himself. According to the source, the professor was amazed that the vampire hesitated, momentarily unsure of what to do. Then “Hatch” noticed the object he grabbed. It was the teaching manual for one of his calculus sections.
Prof. “Hatch” found it odd that the vampire seemed put off by the book since the only ones usually put off by calculus were students. So he decided to experiment. He began to yell out proofs to the vampire. Word by word, inch by inch, the vampire backed up until, finally, it flew off in the night.
When asked why he thought the calculus book worked so well, the professor only said, “I guess the vampire found the idea of math so repulsive in life that it followed him into death.”