Grocery Store Math

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(This piece is dedicated to Irish mathlete Bill Y Ledden.)

The math “skills” of American students are, by international standards and in technical terms, what is known as “in the toilet”causing parents and teachers alike to flush.

As reported in the Washington Post (Dec. 3, 2013), the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results show that U.S. teens are below average in math skills compared to 64 other countries. The U.S. was outscored by such countries as Latvia, Slovenia, and Vietnam. That’s right: in the war of numbers Vietnam has beaten us again. The San Jose Mercury News reports that among 34 developed nations, the United States ranked a close-to-the-bottom 26th in math. It’s an acute problem, a sine of the times.

It’s customary after such negative numbers become public to decry the U.S. educational system, the political system, and the degradation of the family unit, but on a recent jaunt to secure some Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, I had an epiphany as to the true cause our students are confused about numbersand not just even numbers, even odd numbers. Squarely at the root of the math problem in Americais the grocery store.

Sauntering down the paper goods aisle, I noticed several bathroom tissue packages with large equations printed on them. For example, a pack of a dozen rolls of Scott tissue brazenly asserted for every passerby to see that 12 = 36. I remember from my own school daze that the two parallel lines in an equation mean “equals.” So I’m quite surprised that the Scott company would claim that 12 is equal to a number that I was taught is 4 times as much as 12. But then I saw that Angel Soft bathroom tissue backed Scott’s dubious math with their own allegation that 12 = 36. I was even more confused when I spied a different pack of 12 Angel Soft rolls that advertised 12 = 26. So according to Angel Soft, 12 = 26 and 12 = 36, a difference of almost 10. Cottonelle teaches us that 12 = 24, while Charmin instructs that 12 = 24 and 12 = 48. Charmin’s theorem that 24 = 48 is confirmed by both Cottonelle and Quilted Northern except that Quilted Northern subverts its own math by also proposing 24 = 54. Angel Soft boldly goes it alone with their equation 24 = 58. Sometimes the equations get all fuzzy as when Charmin posits that 12 is “more than 24,” which in equation form could look like 12 ˃ 24 or 12 = 24+. What all this adds up to is bathroom tissues are just as soft on math as they are on our backsides. Clearly toilet paper is tearing at the very tissue of our society; it’s shredding our children’s sagging math skills. No wonder we’re near the bottom.

Additionally, paper towels also figure into our children’s declining math abilities. Bounty educates us that 12 = 16, 12 = 18, and 12 = 20, plus that 6 = 8 and 2 = 5. Brawny tries to convince us that 3 = 4, 6 = 9, and 8 = 14 while Sparkle postulates that 8 = 12 and 6 = 10. Among paper towels only Decorator goes into the advanced math of fractions with their equation 3 = 3½. Though my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Carter, would not have assented to Decorator’s arithmetic, she would have agreed that of all the publicized paper-goods equations 3 = 3½ comes the closest to being accurate. Among paper-goods companies, Decorator is a math genius.

The common denominator in what I’ve exposed so far is the mind-blowing equations trumpeted by paper goods, but when you look for other culpable products, you’ll find that soda pops. Yes, diet Mtn Dew seems equally bent on multiplying our students’ woes. The 7.5-ounce can of diet Mtn Dew indicates in writing that it contains 0 calories. The 12-ounce can/bottle also reports that it contains 0 calories. So how many calories are in a 16-ounce bottle of diet Mtn Dew? Take a moment to carefully calculate your answer. OK. I’m sure you arrived at the correct response of 5 calories. That’s what the bottle says. You can check it yourself. So if there are 5 calories in 16 ounces, how many calories are there in a 2-liter bottle? You’ll be relieved to learn from the label that the 2-liter bottle contains “0 calories per 12 ounces.” If you’re at all like me, you realize that diet Mtn Dew math tells us something very important: avoid the 16-ounce bottle at all costs. Who needs the calories?

In sum, I can count on one hand the dozens of reasons our students are lagging behind students in other countries in math. All of these equilibrium-disturbing equations are a prime example of how grocery stores are a factor in ruining the fundamentals of math understanding in this country. Our students’ math test scores are simply a product of product advertising. If you can’t count on the ad divisions of American corporations, whom can you count on? I believe there’s a conspiracy to create mathematical chaos in this country. I call this my chaos theory. In equation form it looks like this: Grocery Store Equations = Mathematical Chaos. American grocery stores are derailing math education, getting our students off track, one train having left Bentonville, Arkansas at 7:00 a.m. traveling east at 60 mph. When product after product indiscretely blazons that 12 = 24 = 48 = 56, the problem is as easy to figure as 2 + 2 = . . . Oh, who knows what the hell 2 + 2 equals anymore? But I do know that if I had 2 apples and a grocery store gave me 1.14 more apples what I’d have. . . . I’d have pie. I’d eat half of it myself and share the other 65% with you.

For even funnier posts, check out the “work” of Bill Y Ledden by clicking on HaHaHaHaHa.

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13 thoughts on “Grocery Store Math”

  1. Bill Spencer, you are such a legend. I attempted to count all the numbers puns in the post but alas, you know I haven’t got the ability to do that. Until someone invents some sort of digital device that you tap numbers into and it does the math and throws the answer back at you. I’m going back to bed.

    1. You have issue with the tissue! Your house is a no single-ply zone! You have ZERO tolerance for single ply, so for you TWO-ply is the only ONE.

  2. LOL. Good one. But you got it all wrong. See, in Common Core, 12 DOES equal whatever number is greater. So technically the kids are right on schedule in learning the new new math. Remember 9+2=10 and a Dozen can equal 10, and a Baker’s dozen can equal 10, 15, or 20, depending on the day of the week.

    Only the folks that actually learned how to count by spot reading know the “old math”.

    1. Is it true they’re using the same old math books, just new additions?

      I guess it’s all half of one, six dozen of another.

      Thanks for zeroing in on the problem. Maybe now we can solve it.

      1. No these kids are not. What they got them using is an abomination. It takes 2-5 minutes for them to solve 9+6. They claim the new new math works on a “base 10 system” so they solve the problem like this: They have to “partner 9 to an anchor that is close to 10 to get students to ‘see’ the road to 15.” So they “decompose the 6” into parts like 1&5, 3&3, 2&4, 6&0. So then if you pick 1&5, they make the students “anchor 9 to the 1” to make 10 and then just add the 5 for hoots and giggles to get 15.

        Option 2 is that 9+6 equals 20. See, since 9 is really 10, and 6 is really 10, than 10 and 10 is 20, because you round off to the nearest 10. In subtraction 9-6 would equal zero for the same principal.

        Anybody born before 1990 stands there and wonders what the hell is really going on in the classroom. But hey, common core says we didn’t “learn” how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We just regurgitated tables. But since 12 equals 24, no problem. Round off to the nearest 10 for no reason and call yourself genius.

  3. Love it Bill. This one had me ROFL. Consider the one that drives me nuts, try to compare the cost of one brand to another. One tells you the amount you are purchasing per hundred sheet, say of paper towels…the other tells you how much your cost is per oz. of paper towels. I may be found scratching my head in wonderment in aisle 9. Please come find me as I’ll still be there with the calculator on my not so smart phone next Wednesday. Although I agree with you, the grocery stores are totally ruining our kids math, maybe secretly, it’s really a conspiracy to drive away anyone who actually wants to comparison shop.

    1. Leslie, I envision you comparison shopping like a superhero a la The Terminator (only you’re The Calculator), saying in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice, “I’ll be back.”

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