How Real Women Solve Real Math Problems

I find many opportunities pop up to teach my children little life lessons to better forge their own little moral compasses. These lessons are almost always learned from mistakes I make, which really makes me feel better about my mistakes, like somehow God WANTS me to do things wrong so that my kids can learn from me. Being the kind of mom who obviously wants her kids to learn, I look forward to these moments, not necessarily with glee, but not necessarily not with glee. Like yesterday. I was driving Justin to work and this person pulled right out in front of me going about 2 mph, like his car had its own agenda and he was simply the unwilling hostage behind the wheel. I tailgated him to the light and when he turned and we were alongside each other, I called him an asshat. Justin looked up from his phone and said, "Did you just call that guy an asshat?" I said, "Yes and he deserved it." and then a few seconds later, "You should definitely NOT ever do that." He said, "Which one, pull out in front of someone or call them an asshat?" I said, "Both, but mostly the asshat part." See? Little life lessons.

So I wanted to share THIS non-asshat-related life lesson with my children that I recently discovered so that I can prove to them once and for all that they will never, never, never, never, NEVER need any of that math bullshit they're forced to learn in school.

I bought a 5-pound package of ground beef at the store. I needed 2 pounds for dinner. I needed to freeze the remaining 3 pounds, but in separate packages, because everyone knows you don't just freeze a 3-pound package of hamburger. Why I still conform to 1-pound packages, I don't really know, since every recipe I have to make for my T. rex family has to be at least doubled and sometimes tripled, but whatever. That's how I learned it from MY mom, the dowager queen herself, and that's how I've always done it. Of course, the package from the store came in a big square, divided in half, so I somehow have to divide it into five. Enter Mom Math.

Already getting a fraction of a headache, I asked the question out loud. Lucky for me, the only two resident math geniuses happened to be the only two people in attendance.

Branden said I should scrunch it all together, roll it out like a snake, then divide it into 5 equal pieces.

Jay said to cut it into 4 equal pieces and then take an equal(ish) piece off of each to make the fifth.

What would YOU do?

Can you guess what I finally did?

If you guessed that I said what the fuck does it really matter if ANY of them are exactly equal to anything, you'd be correct. I cut the two large halves somewhat unevenly so I now had 2 bigger pieces and 2 smaller pieces. Then I decided the two smaller pieces were each 1(ish) pound to give me the 2 pounds I needed for dinner. The two bigger pieces became the total 3(ish) pounds I was gonna freeze, having decided it was way easier to just freeze two packs of 1-1/2 (ish) pounds than three packs of 1(ish) pound, which is never enough for any recipe I make, anyway. Voila. Divided not as equal pieces, but as practical of pieces as I actually needed!

See? Not one calculator, not one carry a number, no stupid X, and no one had to stick a pencil in their own eyeball. I shall call it the Theory of Simplicity, and the whole world will adopt my no need for math policy, and I will be most pleased.