Drabble by Kevin Fagan for April 24, 2016

That would be a brilliant theory if you could only convince me that Wally is also able to multiply by seven.

When I worked for a chain drug store, I would be upset when the manager checking us out at the end of the shift had to go to the calculator for 2 $1.00 coupons!!

I saw a store clerk use a calculator to decide on 10% of a price.

As a college math instructor, I can tell you that most of today’s college aged adults cannot do simple arithmetic without a calculator. For example, one divided by three is clearly one-third, but many tell me it’s 0.33.

Pathetic, but so true. What a shame. No battery. No answer.

Calculators are so 1970s these days.There’s probably a calculating app on your smart phone or your computer that replaced that.

And we wonder what is wrong with the country….start here…

At least 50 years ago, Isaac Asimov wrote a great story called “The Feeling of Power” about a future in which all calculations had been done by computers so long that when someone rediscovered how to do simple calculations by hand, he was regarded as a genius!

Math was always my worse subject….mainly, I think, because I found it boring. But I can still do pretty complex arithmetic calculations in my head.

Seriously. It’s always been a thing for young high school age kids to work as cashiers at stores and restaurants but now you would be surprised if they could do basic math to make change etc. Have they stopped teaching math at school?!