Freaking Awesome

The events recounted in this post are entirely true to the best of the author's and her source's knowledge.


A few days ago my math teacher, Mr. Zappia, told us a story. It took over half an hour to tell. This is the short version.


A few years ago, he had a mini-stroke. Ever since, he has had a migrane every single day.


A few weeks after that happened, he got in a car accident. 


The back of his car was considerably closer to his head. The passenger's side of the car was considerably closer to his body. His seat was at a 45-degree angle (that's Pi/4 radians, which I have put here for his benefit in the off-chance that he finds this) to where it should be. Somehow, he was alive and entirely uninjured except for being in shock.


Hospital bills are expensive. New cars are expensive.


The car accident happened over spring break. A day or two after school was back in session, he got an email from a former student attending college in Arizona saying "Heard what was going on. Let me know if you need any help." He thought That's very nice of (him/her)." He typed back "That's very nice of you." 
Later that day, he received a call from a different former student attending college in Ohio, saying much the same thing.
During lunch, he was eating in his classroom with a few of his current students. He told them about this and remarked on how odd it was that they'd both gotten in touch with him on the same day.
The students started edging toward the door.


"You know something," he said.


"No we don't.


"Yes you do. What is it?"


"We don't want to tell you."


"(laughs) I'm not giving you a choice."


They walked back towards his desk, and one of them asked "Have you ever read Harry Potter?"


This, understandably, confused Mr. Zappia. "Um, yes. Are you changing the subject?"


" You know how Harry Potter had an army?"


"Yeah?"


"Well," the student said, "You have an army too."


This group of students had made shirts with lightning bolts on the front reading "Zap's Army" with math symbols on the sleeves. They had started a group of Facebook to sell these shirts to a greater span of people. The cost was variable, so people could pay extra if they wanted. All of the extra was to go to Mr. Zappia to pay for his expenses.


"(in shock) I can't accept that."


"We know. That's why we didn't want to tell you."


He wrote a letter, emailed it to these guys, and they put it on the Facebook group saying that all of this was very nice, but he wasn't going to take the money.
In the end, they gave him $6300 and he gave it to Habitat For Humanity.


He had an army. With T-shirts. How awesome is that?