My father is now and forever will be an analytical and logical man. I dreaded that growing up. When I came home with word problems I would quake in my groovy, wedgie-heeled boots. It meant HOURS of sitting at the kitchen table while he asked the same question: "What do they want to know? Now when I think back, it was rarely more than two hours at the most but at that age it feels like an eTERnity! It was during these times I promised myself I'd run away or do something with my life that never EVER required math. I'm a pharmacist and my father put me through school...so THAT went according to plan. Regardless, he would sit with his scratch paper/pad, figure the problem out and then not let me see it. I had to do it on my own. CRAP! I was reduced to tears almost nightly. "Just let me SEEEEEE it!" I would beg and sob. But to no avail; no copying.
I'm all grown up now and my daughter came home tonight with a packet of word problems.
"Mommy, will you help me?" She naively stood before me with the toes of her leather fringed boots rolling out with each syllable. She looked bow-legged.
I smirked. "Sure." and grabbed my trusty notepad. I motioned for her to sit next to me at the kitchen table. In my mind I saw my father's eyes and heard his voice as I asked "Now. WHAT do they want to know?" I sniffed back the tears and ignored the chill that raced down my spine. Was there a facial tic? Nooooo. Surely not.
We began and I kicked butt. I knew EXACTLY what they wanted. I marched through them lickety-split. It was extremely difficult not to simply run off with her papers and finish them on my own. I secretly wanted to copy them and send them to my dad....SEE? SEE? I can do it! I KNOW WHAT THEY WANT TO KNOW! But I didn't. Not this time.
Then we hit a snag. I couldn't work around the units and to convert them was too complicated (It went beyond her fifth grade level). I used up two pages and scratched out all my work. At one point we were sitting next to each other in separate chairs, both on our knees and swaying back and forth. (Yes Dad, I WAS twirling my hair!) We must have stayed like that for half an hour.
Then Maddie asked; " Why don't we just do this, this and this?"
I bit my lip and looked at it. It was plain as day. My shoulders fell. I was crushed and swore I would never try out for that Jeff Foxworthy game show...because I was NOT smarter than my fifth grader.
I handed her the phone and dialed. As my father picked up, I told her what to say.
"Hello?"
"Hi Pop pop. Umm I was wondering if you could help me? See, I brought home a bunch of word problems and now Mommy's crying and saying something about "What do they want to know?" She said it would be on your pad of paper."
There was silence on his end. I couldn't hold back and snickered into the other extension.
He laughed at me realizing and remembering as I announced this would be the last time we would speak of such an event.
"Says YOU!" He teased. "I got one for ya..." he continued. "If I mix a martini for you in the kitchen and you take it into the piano room, how long before it's gone?"
"Easy." I replied. " I shoot it in the hall and come back for another. Keep mixin. This is the good kind of math."
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