Friday, April 22, 2011

I Sometimes Wonder Why I Admit To These Sorts Of Things

I am terribly, awfully, horribly mentally deficient when it comes to anything involving numbers*.  Actually, that's not quite true-- I'm pretty good at memorizing strands of numbers, like phone numbers, social security numbers (family members only, don't worry, I'm not going around ripping off identities or anything!), bank account numbers (see last set of parentheses), and that sort of thing.  But doing math-ly things with them?  My skills extend no further than long division.  And even then, they're pretty shaky-- and certainly not something I can do without whipping out a pencil and paper.  Adding numbers in my head?  I try not to unless it's okay if I'm off by a few clicks in either direction.  I can do multiplication in my head-- up to the number 12, and even then only by using the songs we learned in order to memorize them in the 3rd grade.  I should probably be embarrassed by this, but I've learned to own it and embrace it.  It's not necessarily something I tattoo on my forehead or anything, but if someone asks why I'm using a calculator for simple math, I generally reply that even when it comes to the simplest math, I'm pretty much hopeless.

All this to let you know that, every once in awhile, even I am amazed at my own ineptitude sometimes.  For example, I'm making deviled Easter eggs to take to my mom's house for lunch Sunday.  (It's the only time of the year you can serve multicolored eggs without people wondering whether you're trying to give them food poisoning!)  Yesterday we colored 20 eggs.  I was trying to think how many deviled egg halves I would have. I counted each egg by twos.  40 deviled egg halves.  And then the little voice in the back of my head piped up and asked me, "Seriously? You couldn't have just said 'let's see, 20x2=40?'"  And I thought, "Gee, thanks a lot, little voice in the back of my head... where were you before I started counting eggs?"

*I do not say this to cast any sort of aspersions on people who honestly are mentally deficient in any way. Please bear in mind that I am prone to hyperbole (you do know what my blog is called, right?), and am using a poetic license of sorts.

1 comment:

  1. I am the say way about math. If my husband isn't around then I will Google fractions if I double or half a recipe. I guess at numbers. For example tonight, a castmate and I were compairing ages. He just turned 17. I said out loud, "I'm 15 years older than you!" followed by a crazy look from other castmates. "Uh, 13? 12." In unison from the group "11!" Flicking my hair back I replied "I'm an artist not a mathematician."

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