Dancing a Jig

Ariel is sick again. This time she has a fever and cold. But regardless, she took her Calculus 2 final. I guess it doesn’t matter if she’s too sick to see straight. It’s just math—all she has to do is type symbols into her do-everything-but-cook-dinner calculator and punch the equals button. Although there is a section on the exam that has to be done without a calculator, but I think even that section consists of writing weird equations full of Greek letters and not actual numbers.

Real numbers are the problem. Ariel nannied for a couple of weeks and her employer asked her how many hours she worked—the rumor is that she had to count them out-loud. Her employer (yeah, Chris, that’s you) apparently laughed and told her she ought to take the derivative instead. But it’s not funny! Do you know how many years I drilled this child in her math facts? And all for naught!

Even Calvin shakes his head and says, “Ariel, how will you ever manage your checkbook?” Of course, this has to be taken with the caveat that Calvin is obsessed with the perfect checkbook—he balances to the penny every month. (In fairness, Calvin has caught lots of bank errors over the years—probably totaling nearly $1000.) I am banished from checkbook maintenance. This happened early in our marriage—sometimes I added when I was supposed to subtract and vice versa. This did not make my husband happy—though I was never overdrawn. Of course, since I hate doing banking, this banishment was not altogether unpleasant. In fact, one could say that I might have danced a jig.