2006-05-16
one plus zero
I hunkered at my desk. The first problem made my mouth sour.
3/6 + 4/5 = ?
Poor fractions. They looked so lonely on the page, those partial numbers like amputees with missing arms or legs.
I scanned question three, which had something to do with two hundred and fifty-sixths of birthday cake. Just call it half a cake. Same thing.
Question number four was multiple choice. One of the answers was:
1234
-------
0
This fraction wasn't even mathematically possible. Try dividing 1234 by zero on a calculator. It will flash a little E that means ERROR. Dr. Who explained that this fraction represented infinity. But that wasn't right. My head crackled. I stared at those impossible numbers and saw planets explode, suns supernova and collapse.
Skipping down, the word problems weren’t any better.
Question five: Jose spent a third of his money on ice-cream. After buying the ice-cream, he was left with six dollars. How much money did he start with?
Who cared.
Question six: Rahim has one and a half times as much candy as Phoung. Rosa has two-thirds as much candy as Rahim. Who has more candy? Rosa or Phoung?
Geez, these kids were pigs.
I erased so hard, I drilled a hole in the paper.
Dr. Who beamed his gaze in my direction.
He snatched my test and gave me an F. The frozen zero. I knew one thing: My mistakes added up to nothing.
f-i-n at 11:26 p.m.