THE TEACHER LOOKS LIKE A HIPPO

I was reading a fictional story to a group of second graders. The main character was a teacher who was a Hippo. We were all enjoying the story and were discussing how silly it was to have a Hippo as a teacher. We were pointing out all the silly parts, such as rodent students, vegetable vehicles. To wrap it all up I said, foolishly, "AND WE ALL KNOW THAT TEACHERS DON'T LOOK LIKE HIPPOS." One little boy said "well actually, you do kind of look like that Hippo. You have a round belly just like her." He must have recognized the alarm on my face because he went on to say (making it worse!) "But, that's o.k., I'm chubby too. I also have a big hippo belly and you can do sit-ups to get rid of it. I resisted the urge to choke him and just thanked him for his comments.