I used to be really good at math.
And I mean really good…
I was in honors math in high school.
When I decided to major in English and writing in college, I breezed through the required math classes I took.
In high school, I was even in Mathletes.
Go ahead and make all your “nerd” jokes now. I’ll wait.
Gotten that out of your system? Okay, great.
But somewhere along the line, my brain must have unceremoniously dumped most of my math skills.
How do I know this? Well, let me tell you a story…
I recently went to the dollar store. I love getting stuff cheap.
I made my purchase, and the total came to $4.24.
Using my razor-sharp mathematical skills, I gave the cashier a five-dollar bill and a penny.
I want you to think about that for a second.
Who knows what I did wrong?
The friend who was with me knew immediately. He looked at me and asked, “What are you doing?”
The cashier then handed me my penny back, along with the additional 76 cents.
Another worker at the dollar store thought that my mistake was absolutely hilarious. She began to laugh and point while saying, “Ha! She had to give you 77 cents back! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
They must not get a lot of amusement at the dollar store.
When I turned to look behind me, all the folks in the line were smiling.
I simply said, “Whoops! My mistake.” And then I headed out the door, hoping that no one who actually knew me was seeing this fiasco.
What I wanted to do was turn around and yell, “I was in honors math!!!! I studied Calculus for two years as well as one semester in college! I got A’s!!!”
But I didn’t.
I wanted to let all those folks know that I’ve done well in my chosen field—writing—and I’ve even garnered a few awards in that.
But I didn’t.
What I did do was call my husband to tell him.
He works with numbers.
He began laughing hysterically.
“I can see why you thought that,” he said. Because we’ve been married for many years—and he’d like to stay that way—he added, “And I was laughing with you, not at you.”
This was especially embarrassing for me because my husband can add numbers so quickly. He figures math-related addition and subtraction so much faster than I. In fact, he does it so quickly that sometimes I refer to him as “Rain Man.”
“I’m not Rain Man,” he always says. “I just work with numbers every day. This is easy for me.” That’s when I threaten to throw a box of toothpicks on the floor just to check.
I don’t because I know he couldn’t calculate how many were left in the box or all over the floor, and then I would have to throw away the ones on the floor because I’m not exactly a domestic goddess.
But I digress…
Here’s what I’ve deduced (I would have said “calculated,” but even that word causes me embarrassment right now): with all the things I know and keep learning daily, my brain needed some room. It needed to purge some of the old files, so to speak. What it did then, was look at what I use regularly (like writing, speaking, being funny, remembering what channel “Big Bang Theory” is on and what night; you know—important stuff like that). Then it looked at what I really don’t use often (like math, how to fold those notes we used to send in high school that looked like little footballs, how to roller skate—things it has deemed “unimportant” for some reason) and simply forgotten them.
At least that’s what I’m going with.
Oh, and for the kids out there, two quick pieces of advice: 1. Stay in school. 2. Study math. 3. Keep using it.
Or one day, this could be you.
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not using her fingers to count, writes “Wojo’s World®” from her home office.