Just For Andi…

When is one-third, not one-third?

Say you have a math homework problem and you’re eleven years old and you HATE fractions with a burning passion.

You ask your mom across the room, “What does ONE DIVIDED BY THREE equal?” You get extremely upset with her when she offhandedly (and quite innocently) replies ONE-THIRD. You scream at her, “IT CAN’T BE A FRACTION!” and you get even more upset when she then answers with “0.3333333 ad nauseum.”

You just can’t win here (no matter which side of the room you’re sitting on). Now, extend this argument out about 15 minutes and add in an annoying little brother who can’t keep his nose in his own math book to save the world. Can you see what’s coming?

Yes, you finally take your notebook over to your mom because she’s too stupid to do math in her head and she needs to SEE it or some such nonsense to make heads or tails of it. So you patiently (did you hear the sarcasm there?) show her the problem: X/2 + 2/3 = 5/6.

She steals your pencil and rummages up a piece of scrap paper and starts scribbling down lines and lines of numbers. You yell at her to stop when she makes the slightest variation from the way the teacher did the example in class. “You can’t DO THAT! WE HAVE TO USE THIS SHORTCUT!” Then she goes on to keep solving for X and comes up with X = 1/3. Which we all know by now, cannot be the answer.

STUPID WOMAN! IT CAN’T BE A FRACTION! None of the OTHER answers have been fractions and you HATE working with fractions.

Don’t let her try to explain how she did it either. If you must, resort to holding your hands over your ears and screaming, “I HATE FRACTIONS” over and over until she gives up. You must also resist her trickery when she starts asking “What do you call ONE DIVIDED BY TWO? ONE DIVIDED BY FOUR?” Remember, she cannot be allowed to win here, you cannot admit that ONE DIVIDED BY THREE EVER equals ONE-THIRD.

You finally accept that ONE-THIRD might possibly be the answer after another five minutes of additional grousing and sulking, but try to argue your way out of it. Get upset when your mother throws up her hands and says, “Just write whatever down and take the points off if it’s wrong.”

“Fine, whatever…. ” NO!!! The next problem is -3/-2 = ? You refuse to deal with fractions and tell her “It’s not like we really divided 1 by 3 anyway.” So there.

Oh… and you MUST hiss in a most unbecoming fashion when that annoying little brother starts reading over your mom’s shoulder and you realize that you’ve become a blog entry again. Great. First the dress and now this.

Are you SURE you want a WHOLE day in the life post, Andi?