Carpe Calypso

Harry Belafonte always makes me think of Beetlejuice. Carpe Day-O.

I’m tired and not very original tonight. So instead of my ramblings, I leave you with this New Age Math Test a friend stole from the internet and sent my way. Enjoy.

New Age Math Test

1) Mary and Jane were given a Rottweiler at their commitment ceremony. If their dog needs to be walked two miles a day and they walk at a rate of 3/4 mile per hour, how much time will they spend discussing their relationship in public?

2) Michael has two abusive stepfathers and an alcoholic mother. If his self-esteem is reduced by 20% per dysfunctional parent, but Michael feels 3% better for every person he denigrates, how long will it take before he’s ready to go home if 1 person walks by the cafe every 2 minutes?

3) Sanjeev has 7 piercings. If the likelihood of getting cellulitis on a given day is 10% per piercing, what is the likelihood Sanjeev will need to renew his erythromycin prescription during the next week?

4) Chad wants to take half a pound of pot to Orinda and sell it at a 20% profit. If it originally cost him $1,500 in food stamps, how much should Nicole write the check for?

5) New York City decides to destroy 50 rats infesting downtown. If 9,800 animal rights activists hold a candlelight vigil, how many people did each dead rat empower?

6) A red sock, a yellow sock, a blue sock, and a white sock are tossed randomly in a drawer. What is the likelihood that the first two socks drawn will be socks of color?

7) George weighs 245 pounds and drinks two triple lattes every morning. If each shot of espresso contains 490 mg of caffeine, what is George’s average caffeine density in mg/pound?

8) There are 4500 homes in Mill Valley and all of them recycle plastic. If each household recycles 10 soda bottles a day and buys one polar fleece pullover per month, does Mill Valley have a monthly plastic surplus or deficit?

Bonus question: Assuming all the plastic bottles are 1 liter size, how much Evian are they drinking?

9) If the average person can eat one pork pot sticker in 30 seconds, and the waitress brings a platter of 12 pot stickers, how long will it take five vegans to not eat them?

10) Todd begins walking down Market Street with twelve $1 bills in his wallet. If he always gives panhandlers a single buck, how many legs did he have to step over if he has $3 left when he reaches the other end and met only one double-amputee?

Advanced Placement Students Only:

11) Katie, Trip, Ling, John-John, and Effie share a three-bedroom apartment on Guerrero for $2400 a month. Effie and Trip can share one bedroom, but the other three need their own rooms with separate ISDN lines to run their web servers. None of them wants to use the futon in the living room as a bed, and they each want to save $650 in three months to attend Burning Man. What is their best option:

a) All five roommates accept a $12/hour job-share as handgun monitors at Mission High.

b) Ask Miles, the bisexual auto mechanic, to share Effie and Trip’s bedroom for $500/month.

c) Petition the Board of Supervisors to advance Ling her annual digital artists-of-color stipend.

d) Rent strike.

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Oh hush. You laughed.

Tomorrow I will try to do better by you all. Well, “try.”

Look out, I feel an unplanned ramble coming on. . . .

“The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them.”

So very, very true. And so very, very hard. Hard to do, and hard to accept once it’s done.

I miss my children. I love the two adults that look and act vaguely like two children who once lived here, but I miss those children.

I even miss the mess, and the poop.

Of course, at the time, I was counting down till there would be no messes and no poop.

No mess. No poop. I couldn’t wait.

And now I have no mess. I still have poop but it’s generally contained and vanishes before I have to look at it. Oh okay, I still have a mess, too, but it’s mostly Hub’s. Really it is. He’s a pack rat.

How long has it been since I cleaned out this ‘office supply’ box in my desk drawer? A long time. My son is 24 years old, but I just found a baby bottle nipple way in the back behind some ancient staples and a paperweight made of clay with “to momy” scratched on it. If you offered me a zillion dollars for it, you couldn’t have it.

I did throw the nipple away, though. It was actually brittle with age.

Hub’s a pack rat. I might have a little tendency that way myself.

And why would a brittle old brownish baby bottle nipple make me all teary-eyed? I must have allergies.

Yes. That’s it. Allergies.


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