Math was never my strong suit. That’s putting it politely. Seeing a long equation on a chalkboard registers roughly the same in my mind as one of those speed-reading pharmaceutical announcers reciting their drug’s horrendous side effects in Mandarin Chinese. My mind’s wired to simply shut itself down and looks for the closest escape route. The classic flight response.
In elementary school, I remember spending what seemed like entire summers going through multiplication flash cards with my mom. Most time, it came down to either dumb luck or just repetitive, rote memory. I can still vividly remember the pain, anguish and frustration of seeing those cards flipped over and seeing my answer not even remotely in the same ball park.
“What is the answer to eight times nine?”
“Umm, Milwaukee.”
This may also, in fact, explain why I still have a genuine phobia involving any games that require cards in order to play.
“Come on, it’s a simple card game called ‘Go Fish’.”
“No. That’s just shortened title for ‘Go Fish for Another Flash Card Because You’re Answer is Wrong Again’!”
Not that I’m scarred or anything…
It didn’t get any better with time. I got through high school taking basic algebra in two, one-year increments. I also had the distinct pleasure of taking geometry not once, but twice. Much like famed blues guitarist Robert Johnson, it was widely rumored that I had also sold my soul to the devil for that hard-earned “D” the second time around. Only difference was that Johnson supposedly sold his soul at the crossroads in order to play a blistering guitar and be an idol to modern R&B musicians worldwide…whereas I received the super-advanced mathematical prowess that allowed me to score the academic equivalent of “conscious” on my geometry final so that I could walk at graduation.
Apparently, I’m the Dollar General of discount soul negotiations.
Rounding out my senior year, I wound up taking computer programming courses, typing, even a semester in a Model UN class in order to steer clear of any additional, graduation-threatening math curricula. My presence in math classes that year equated to the Sasquatch sightings of my high school transcripts. There were reports that a few had been spotted prior to graduation, but were ultimately dismissed by several institutes of higher learning as hearsay or the result of delusional hallucinations.
College was no different. I remember flipping through my college’s coursework catalog trying to pick a major based on the amount of math classes that it required. A Journalism major with a concentration in Public Relations was elected the winner with a paltry three. Even picking those three classes was an exercise in absolute futility. Much like Geometry in high school, I also took Statistics twice. I lasted eight days the first time before I realized that treading water and simply riding out a prayer-induced surge wasn’t going to cut it in college. I lasted only three days the second time around, before dropping it yet again.
Think about that mindset as a talent for one moment. I dropped the same class twice, with eleven combined days in the classroom, for the exact same reason. By that point, even the devil realized the hopelessness of this soul’s ill-fated voyage and demanded a full refund.
After graduating with that degree, I came to find that jobs in the field of public relations, in-and-around the Washington DC area, were ultra-competitive. My first job offer was a six month, unpaid internship for a lobbying firm on K Street.
“Wait, unpaid? That means like no income for six months, right?” I may have possessed the mathematical cunning of a sleeping Golden Retriever, but even I knew that those numbers didn’t really add up in my favor.
As my available funds began to dry out though, I grew desperate for a job. A paying job.
Because my reality typically allies itself with the oft-magical world of irony and satire, I wound up taking the first paying job that was offered to me. And of course it was in finance. Knowing nothing about finance, I thought I had suckered them into hiring me. In hindsight though, I’m fairly certain it was I who was said sucker.
Allow me entertain you with a visual. Imagine a speeding freight train barreling towards the canyon…and the bridge is out. Yes. For me, a job in finance was a lot like that. The screams of the train engineer could be heard each-and-every morning, echoing off of the canyon walls, as his alarm clock woke him up for yet another day in the enchanting world of government finance. Echoes reverberating loudly as his train plunged off of that bridge and performed a blazing death spiral into the barren gorge below.
Over-dramatic, you say? Not for a second. It was the psychological equivalent of “Groundhog Day” on a three year bender.
Eventually, irony and satire righted themselves and I now find myself in the world of regulatory compliance. Words, laws, reading comprehension. Although all was professionally right with the world again, I never truly foresaw the steamy pile that Murphy’s Law would serve up next.
I can still see myself. Sitting in geometry class thinking “what an utter waste of my time” and “when I am I ever going to use this garbage”. I had an idea of what I wanted to do in life and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with equations, angles, or those geometry theorems that left me rocking in the fetal position.
Years now passed, I am now suddenly being reminded just how blissfully ignorant all of those fleeting thoughts were. Nowhere, in the back on my 1980s mullet-laden head, did I anticipate what would follow some 25 years later. That my very own children would be going to school and need help with that exact same math homework that I butchered and deliberately avoided my whole life.
It’s “Groundhog Day” again…and it was that same freight train. Only this time, the train was weighted down with the dreams and educational futures of my children as well as my own self-loathing guilt of being a worthless facilitator to those dreams and educational futures.
Me? I could go on all day about the important things…like the differences between rock bands, muscle cars, and beer. Useful facts and trivia, should ever find yourself being quizzed at a concert, NASCAR event, or keg party. But the differences between acute and obtuse angles? Parallelograms, rhombuses, and rhomboids? Remember…Golden Retriever…fast asleep.
Now I find myself assuming that same blank, ape-like expression from high school as I attempt to help my son with his 5th grade geometry homework. The glistening beads of panic and confusion now even more obvious as they cascade freely down my mullet-less, bald nugget of a head.
We desperately tried to help him. My wife tried. I tried. It was literally like the blind leading the blind though. As the hours passed, there were instances where we found some semblances of success. However, we were routinely able to find animated episodes of all-out, 5th grade mutiny as well. His mind would simply shut itself down and look for the closest escape route. I wonder where he acquired that trait?
For hours every evening, the three of us would sit at the kitchen table staring at his books and notes. Little surfaced from our efforts outside of mind-numbing frustration coupled with the swirling, pungent funk of mental fatigue. Our body language strangely reminiscent of the famed “Three (Un)Wise Monkeys”.
“See no answers, hear no answers, speak no answers.”
It had already been a long year for me personally in trying to grasp some of these mystifying, new-aged mathematical concepts that he was required to know. Take this “lattice math” concept as an example. Why do I not remember math concepts from my youth named after a decorative porch dressing? Is there a “floor joist math” or “railing baluster math” that will sneak up on us in high school?
Ultimately, it became evident that if genetics played any part in this, the boy was doomed.
“Paging Mr. Beelzebub… Discount souls now clearanced on aisle five!”
Unlike his father though, the boy pulled through and passed his class as well as all of his standards assessments the first time around. It may have taken some long evenings in the books, a couple hundred practice tests, and a few magical sprinkles of insanity-laced, parental tyranny, but the boy made it through unscathed. Soul and all.
Now that summer vacation has finally descended upon us, there is a temporary lull in the storm. Those endlessly delightful evenings of mathematical looting and rioting at the kitchen table have subsided for a few months. Alas, anarchy sleeps. The dark clouds remain just on the horizon though, knowing that his math classes will only get harder for him (and us) as he continues his march towards high school.
“So, son…how familiar are you with the stories of the Sasquatch?”
