So there I was the other day, waiting my turn at the large store that equips you for all types of house remodeling projects. They have some designer-type folks as well, and perhaps the pretty girl helping folks decide would have some taste. I could get some advice. As I fidgeted with my cellphone, I wondered how long it would take, and whether it should be appliances only, or counters too and why it was that kitchen cupboards were the most expensive thing to do. Then suddenly, it was my time! Yes! She was rather hot. Cool, too. And then as I finished making notes and taking samples, she said would you return these in a week, and I said yes of course. What's the date today, wondered. I said, it's Thursday the 6th. O yes! she exclaimed. Now let me see, you'll have a week, so what date will it be a week from now...hmm...! With a puzzled look, she went to her computer to pull up the calendar - to figure out what date it would be a week from Thursday the 6th, the date I'd so helpfully provided to her.
It was too much for me. Stunned at this unexpected display of unabashed oblivious "mathlessness", I slunk away with my samples, grumbling to myself. "Bye-eeeeeee! Have fun!" she called out. I gurgled a reply and shimmered away.
Gentle readers, it is my belief that it is best to run away if one encounters such a person. Life is short, and one likes to keep it easy. It is too hard to deal with a person who is simple about everyday math. Or to put it another way, someone who suffers from innumeracy (a la illiteracy). This is the sort of person that doesn't know a dozen is 12, or that a week has 7 days. Or that 18 + 12 = 30 and that's the same as 20 + 10, which is also 10 X 3. The sort of person who will therefore always struggle to balance a checkbook, pay a bill, keep of track of birthdays, goof up on calendering, forget PINs and passwords, miss flights because they report ETDs in 24-hour format.
I'm sorry for you, if you're one such - but come on, how do you survive? Your kind will soon be extinct, my dear - locked out of a 21st century world that essentially runs on numbers. So sorry.
You can do very little to remedy this, perhaps it would be good to keep a PDA, a cellphone and lots of paper and pens around you. And friends, if you have any patient enough to keep you on track. That's all. But there's something else you should think about doing. And that is, make sure your kids get math early. Really early. So they won't end up like you. And make sure that in 8th grade they encounter algebra, regardless of what it does for their self-esteem, or their desire to go to school. Because without it they'll be as relevant to the mainstream world of tomorrow as vinyl records, Super Mario Bros and 8 1/4 floppies.
Oh sorry, you don't understand fractions either now, do you?!
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