Statistics, IHOP, Beth and I, 9/10/04

Those of you who know me (and those of you who don't should seriously realize that I am the Queen of the Universe and the sooner you realize that and start adoring me, the better) know that math and I do not get along. At all. In fact, math is that evil bitch that stole my boyfriend away in junior high, the one with the big boobs and the overbite, and I don't like her one bit (I think I may have surpassed myself in odd analogies but hey, the day is young). So, when Beth told me she was going to review her statistics book in preparation for her new class, I believe I said "Cool. I can read."

But no, that's not the way it works. Beth, who adores math, who does algebra for fun (yes, I know, she's a sick, sick woman), hates statistics. And she subscribes to the theory that if you are struggling with a subject, you should teach it to someone else. Possibly someone who hates all math and didn't memorize 8+5=13 until her first year of college is not the best person to inflict horrid, horrid statistics on but I don't think the other patrons of IHOP would have appreciated it if Beth started teaching it to them.

First we use the example about the tissue company. There is this sentence "Next time you pick up a box of tissues, look for the 800 number for complaints." My response was "Complaints? What the hell do you complain about tissues? They're not fluffy enough? " Beth calmly continues to read "Common complaints are about packaging - misleading or there is damage or the product is defective."

Meanwhile, our food comes. Here is more proof that Beth is extremely logical and possibly Spock's incarnation (if a fictional character can be reincarnated...actually, you know, this is my universe and I say that it can happen! Yes!) - "I always start with the hashbrowns. I have to eat in a specific order." What the hell is that? There's the fun of getting your eggs and hashbrowns mixed up together that she's missing out on.

Then the young ones decided to visit. These are not my young ones. No, thank the good Lord, I am child free. These are small children (well, small adults, maybe) who have decided to join the good people of IHOP and have loud conversations to annoy me. Which, of course, makes it easier for me to blog about them. And someday, they will realize that the entire internet is laughing at them. And then they will be sad and beg for my forgiveness and I will say "NO! You have annoyed me and must perish." Except I don't think I'd go through with the perishing part. I'm not good with the whole blood and destruction thing. I am a kind and peaceful ruler. Okay, anyway, moving along to the group of teenagers sitting behind us.

This is what I was thinking as a Cher song came on and one of the boys started nattering on about how he didn't like Cher and she was so stupid and blah, blah, blah. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! No one cares about how you feel about Cher! No one!" Listening to you blabber is not going to change whether I like Cher or not. I happen to think she's very talented, both as a singer and an actress. So shut up. Go listen to some angsty garage band and leave Cher alone.

Then one of the girls sitting behind us starts to giggle. I hate that. Well, let me rephrase that, there's nothing wrong with a giggle. I was young once. I'm sure I giggled on occasion. What I do hate is when the giggler cannot formulate a complete sentence because of the giggling and then the giggle becomes their actual words. Talk and then laugh or laugh and then talk, okay? People will stop thinking you're stupid if you stop doing them both at once.

Gigi (Giggling Girl): You're so (giggle), you're so (giggle), you're so (giggle).

You're so what? What? If you can't say two words without cracking up, there is a problem. Is there a cat licking a window (which hopefully Matt will write this story soon)? No. Then calm down and talk like a normal person.

More statistics:

B: What is the square root of 5 squared?
DM: Well, 5 squared is 25 (Beth nods. I only know this because we had to go over what a square root is because apparently you have to know how to do this if you want your world to function. Did I mention I hate math)? So then the square root is 5 (Pause while this sinks in). What?
B: Yes. It's a long way to say the number 5.
DM: It's like physics (I am frustrated and cranky at this point)!
B: It's nothing like physics (she is laughing at my frustration and crankiness).
DM: If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we have eggs (Long story short, the physics teacher at my high school wrote this in the yearbook. I have no clue what it means). It's stupid and it makes no sense!
Beth laughs. At me. Again. I am a source of amusement for math lovers. Sigh.

Later.

B: Don't turn around (there is a horrified look on her face).
DM: Would I be scared?
B: Yes. Let's just say wearing a toilet sanitary seat cover is not something you should do in public. Look outside.

I turn. There is one of the young ones walking down the sidewalk with a seat cover around his neck.

DM: Well, it gives new meaning to the word sh*thead (note to The Lioness - I actually do swear. But if you do the asterisk thing you avoid those people who think it's funny to search the internet for swear words).

Beth wants to go back to statistics. Here's a little quiz on how well you know your Queen of the Universe. Multiple Choice. Do I

A: Smile and nod politely while weaving fantasies in my mind including the guy with the toilet seat cover around his neck?
B: Tap into my inner nerd and wow her with the math knowledge I've been keeping from her because I'm so much more knowledgeable about math than she is and it would crush her?
C: Start whining about how much I hate math and why, why, is she making me do this and this is what hell will be like for me?

Yeah, if you thought it was anything other than C, I'm a little frightened by what you think of me. No, I whined. I try to think of it as complaining creatively but it was whining.

Frog came up with a meme about what your room in hell would be like. This was the first time I'd ever been able to figure out what mine was. So, thank you, Frog.

My room in hell will be a class room with my annoying teacher from Lakewood (college, tested poorly in math (hah, big surprise) and had to take this stupid class on working with whole numbers, decimals and fractions) who, every time she wrote a problem on the board would sit there and say "Is that okay? Is that okay?" and I wanted to scream "You're the damn teacher, you should know!" and I'll be forced to do math and no one will acknowledge me. Hell will be statistics and no spotlight on me. Which would hopefully mean that in Heaven I'll get lots of attention and get to read all I want.

And our last conversation of the night.

B: I don't even think stat teachers like stats.
DM: Oh, you know they get into it. They're nerd crunching nerds.
B: Does that mean they eat the candy?
DM: Wait. Talk slow. Flipping (to a blank page in the blog notebook)

Gotta love Beth. She's whole bunches of entertainment. And is willing to drive me places.

Previous Comments:
At 9:52 PM, The Lioness said...
LOL! I love this! :DDD (And I got directly mentioned too, bloody hell! - oh speaking of which, why is it a bother if they find us? I mean, what do they do with their cursing knowledge?)

At 1:17 PM, Robert ~ Marlénè said...
I always thought of statistics as the English Major's Math... I loved the word problems, coming to understand the needs inherent in the problem and finding the equation that solved it. And there were usually two or three possible answers, none of this boring black-and-white yes-or-no nonphilosophical crap.Of course, I liked algebra, too, once it was presented to me as puzzles intead of as math. The practical applications of mathematics are so mind-numbingly dull to us creative types (all the functions of which can be done on a computer, so why bother?) that you have to divorce it from its practicality and make it frivolous. Quadratic equations are more fun than acrostics.

My room in hell would be filled with children and other stupid people talking and talking about things they didn't really understand, and I couldn't point out their errors of logic to them, or even say anything at all unless it was to agree with them. And they would all have Texas accents.

At 4:56 PM, CarpeDM said...
You know, that's a great question. I am not sure what they would do with the swearing knowledge. And it's not like I couldn't delete their comments in the first place. I would say it's because my mother raised me to be a lady (well, she tried) but you know that's not true. Maybe I'm just fond of asterisks? I don't know.