Don't Count On It

Another day, another failure at applying mathematics to real-world situations. I wish I would have worked a TITCH harder in 3rd grade math. Without that basic comprehension, I also have no concept of estimating, budgeting, or distance. Prinna and I did some shopping last night, and we were reminded why neither she nor I have any business using numbers. We stood at the check-out counter, trying to figure out the pricing, additional costs, a discount, and really trying to add everything up in our head (what are we, Einstein!?!). Then our heads exploded and flew across the counter, splattering on the register.

The whole mathy mess just reminded me that my life has been one long Numbers-Induced panic attack, interrupted by life, writing, talking, organizing closets, multi-tasking, shopping, and other things I excel at. I remember doing times tables in 4th grade, and that’s literally the last memory I have of learning math. After that, it’s just panic.

In high school, I called home in a whispering panic. Perek, who must have been like 14 at the time, picked up. “Perek! I’m in line in Target. I have like $8 in my account, and I’m buying gum and a diet Coke. How much is the tax going to be? Do I have enough or do I have to put back the gum?!” He was silent. He took a deep breath and said, “Pharon, yes. Tax is only going to be like 13 cents. It’s 7 percent of the total.” I stopped listening after “yes” and got both the gum AND the pop. Later that same year, I was working at Gap Kids. I rung someone up, and it came to something like $13.60. The woman handed me a ten, a five, and a dime. I stared at the dime, not knowing how to make change. The woman said, “Honey, just give me back $1.50.” Idiot.

I also have no concept of time or distance. The clock in my car is, obnoxiously, exactly 25 minutes fast. I explained my very complex reasoning behind the clock setting to Geo this weekend, but I totally lost him. I said, “If I don’t know how long it takes to get somewhere, I know I automatically have 25 minutes longer, instead of looking at the real time and having to guess based on the exact time.” I mean, even me just WRITING THAT OUT reminds me that it’s nonsense.

My poor, poor dad. My dad is THE numbers guy. He can add two sets of two-digit numbers IN HIS HEAD! Imagine his horrifying disappointment when I made it explicitly clear that I was a total math moron. I was in college, home for a break. I wanted to visit my friend Madeline in Chicago. My mom suggested, “Do you have any frequent flyer miles? Just use those.” So, I called to make the reservations. When I hung up the phone, I said “Huh, I didn’t realize Chicago was so far away.” My dad was standing next to me reading the mail and said “What do you mean?” I said “Apparently, it’s 25,000 miles away. I though it was a little less than that.”

He asked me what in God’s name made me think Chicago was that far away. I said “That’s how many frequent flyer miles it takes.” So, not only do I not understand distances, but I clearly have no concept of how airline miles work either. My dad sighed, and stared out the window as if he could see my college tuition flying out of it. “Pharon, Chicago is not 25,000 miles away. The entire circumference of the world is about 25,000 miles.” Facepalm.

Well, despite my lack of basic arithmetic abilities, I’ve managed to survive this long without them. I have tons of other stuff I’m good at that, in my opinion, totally outweigh the “cool” ability to figure out a tip at a restaurant (which, for the record, my phone calculator does perfectly every single time). I can organize anything, I‘m a sick doodler, I can small talk with the best of ‘em, and I can pull up any celebrity fact in any situation. My mind is already chockfull of that kind of useful information. So yeah, there’s no room at the Inn for math. You know what that means? Apparently, Math is my Jesus. Merry Mathmas!

I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka!

There are lots of reasons why I don’t enter many contests. I generally have bad luck when it comes to winning anything, the prizes aren’t always that cool, and also some of them just take too much work. The problem is that I’m also a giant sucker. I fall for all kinds of things normal, rational people seem to avoid. Plus, numbers don’t mean anything to me, so when something says “Just fill out this quick form and you’re entered to win a Jumbotron TV. Easy, peezy, lemon squeezy. Chances of winning are 1 in a google”, I read “Pharon, you have a chance at winning this.”

Probably the best known Pharonism when it comes to “falling for promotions I do not understand” happened when I was 16. I went to get my oil changed, and drove out of the shop with 2 new, completely unnecessary, tires as well. “Mom! They were having a Buy One Get One Half Off promotion, and I was one of the lucky ones that got to take advantage of the offer! I was being economical!” After that, it took a long time for my parents to let me out in public alone. When Geo and I took a trip last year with some friends to my parents’ time share in Puerto Vallarta, my mom and dad had to very emphatically insist that I not be the one to attend the mandatory Time Share Informational Meeting. They were, rightly so, terrified that I would come back home the proud owner of a time share and newly bankrupt.

But then there are online sweepstakes. These I just love. I religiously enter Kate Spade giveaways. Recently, there was a chance to win a trip to Bali. I entered every single day for about 2 months, thinking that I was out-entering other people and would therefore surely win. I did not win. I was actually very surprised, too. It seemed like a sure thing. Next time, though. Next time, I’ll win for sure.

Then today on Twitter, I mindlessly entered a sweepstakes to win 2 Twins tickets and the opportunity to throw out the first pitch. I have no idea where all the information I submitted will end up, but my thought process is: I like the Twins. I love free tickets. Nothing about this is bad. And I wonder how the fine people at the Juvenile Diabetes Association get my phone number…I’m an idiot. But, I’m an idiot who could be watching a free baseball game next week. Take that!

As usual, in order to not make myself sound like too much of an idiot, I have to give myself some credit. I don’t fall for email scams, and I’ve never sent any money to Nigeria. I stay far far away from digital scams/promotions/sales incentives, for anything from anyone I do not know or did not sign up for. (Unlike a certain mom, who shall remain nameless, who was thisclose to clicking on one of those flashing pop-up windows that declared “You’re the 10,000,000,000th visitor! You’ve won a new iPod! Just click here!” Ha, ha…nOOb.) It’s like growing up in the digital age has ONLY prepared me to handle online sales pitches, and the face-to-face stuff kind of got lost somewhere. I just hope that when I’m sitting at the free Twins game, or strolling along the beaches of Bali that no one walks up to me and offers me free* tires.

*The asterisk, I have found out, is probably the most important thing to read, by the way. Here’s where they say things like “New tires come with lifetime subscription to Car & Driver magazine that you have to pay for and can never cancel. All tires arrive in 6-8 weeks, and will include 4 refugees who you must house, clothe, and feed for up to 18 years. Accepting tires without paying for them is a federal offense, and anyone who signs this deal is an idiot and will end up in jail. Free Tires, Inc. accepts no responsibility for any of the above mentioned, and non-mentioned, scenarios. By accepting this deal, you hereby preclude Free Tires, Inc. from all illegalities and financial wrong doing. Sucker."

You Are Not Reading This

I went to see the movie Inception with Geo tonight. If you feel like having your mind blown, or you’re just sick of having some speck of grasp on reality, definitely see it. The premise of the movie is that a bunch of dudes (and the wonderful Ellen Page) construct dreams, and then enter them and go messing around in them. Mind trip.

So I came home thinking about paradoxes. You know, “a true statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition” (thanks, Wikipedia!) For instance, if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you’d never be born which would then mean that you could never go back in time because you’ve killed your grandfather and you don’t exist. But if you didn’t exist, you wouldn’t go back in time to kill your grandfather, and you would still be born.

Yeah, I’m deep like that.

Okay, so I’m thinking about all this after the movie. I’ve got all these circular logic thoughts running a marathon in my brain, and just when I start to get to the point where I’ve almost lost my mind and have started considering that I am, in fact, living in a dream within a dream, and I’ve briefly grasped the concept of infinite space and time, Geo starts talking to me about skiing movies. And he asks who I want to invite skiing with us next year.

I almost screamed “Next year?! How do you know that next year isn’t actually tomorrow!? If we make plans to go skiing, what happens if we DON’T go skiing? What will happen to the world then?!” and other toooootally normal questions.

Let’s get something straight here. I’m no mathematician. I never exactly thrived in Science, either. I like literature and ideas rather than finite truths. I’m not that big on “The Right Answer” (as my high school math tests will prove). And every once in awhile, I possess the ability to blow my own mind because of this. I don’t mean that I get all existential and go pondering the meaning of life, but I do appreciate a really awesome moment of “Um, wait. Let me get this straight…” and then spend a handful of minutes considering things like the Butterfly Effect. The problem is actually saying these things out loud to people. Especially people smarter than me. I’d hate to explain my idea of, say, how big the universe is to some brainiac who‘s studied Astronomy since he was wearing Jetsons underoos. I prefer meddling around in my own head and trying to figure out my own meaning of what I know and believe.

What do I know and believe? I know that I know nothing, and I believe I’m correct.