KO-ed

"How many times have you been knocked out?" I overheard one student as another the other day.

"Knocked out?" his friend replied. "Do you mean actually unconscious?"

The other kid shrugged. "Yeah. That's what it is."

"Um, never," said his buddy.

The other kid looked bemused. 

I stepped over to them with a bit of concern to investigate. "How many times have you been knocked out?" I asked.

"Just twice," he replied, and he seemed relieved that someone understood that such things happen from time to time. "Once I went over the handlebars of my bike and landed on my head, and the other time I was skateboarding and I crashed into a pole," he willingly elaborated. 

His friend and I nodded thoughtfully.

"You know that doesn't happen a lot," his friend said.

Again, there was confusion in his face. Then he turned to me with a help me out kind of a look. "How many times have you been knocked out?" he asked, perhaps confident that a person of my age must have hit her head a little too hard a few times.

"Never," I told him.

He sighed in disappointment.

"Dude!" his friend said. "You probably should be a little more careful."