Crabgrass by Tauhid Bondia for January 19, 2021

A tank of sleeping gas and a tube with a small nozzle coming from the back of his chair are cheaper…

And what’s the penalty for breaking the promise?

Actually 9 times is easy. It’s just add 10 minus 1 each time. I think 7 times is the hardest. 7 × 6 still sometimes trips me up.

Kevin, you should not make promises you can’t keep.

How to multiply 9 times 1 through 9 times 10:

Take the number you are multiplying by 9 and subtract 1. Put that in your tens place. Subtract that number from 9 and put the result in your ones place.

The trick works even further on, but you increase the number you subtract from your second number (the one that isn’t 9) every ten numbers starting at 11. So 11-20, you would subtract 2 from your second number, and 91-99, you would subtract 10 from your second number. And yes it does work further on, but honestly by that point, you’re using a calculator anyway.

And your product will always add up to 9 if you break it down to a single digit number.

Yes I am a massive nerd.

I know how you feel. I always had trouble with some of my multiplication tables. I missed a lot of Schoolhouse Rock math songs.

When I was a kid, just used to make one of those multiplication matrixes. Did they stop teaching those in school?

Take your time Joan…

She’s actually getting the better side

It bothers me that sometimes I have to stop and think to remember something so simple that has been automatic since elementary school

I’m only 58, can’t really blame old age yet

Sure Kevin, in fact you can just skip school and move straight into this dishing job we’ve been saving for you.

No mention of his calling his teacher Joan ? !

As a teacher, I’d have taken that offer in a New York minute!

She could also have a long, sturdy and flexible ruler at hand for each and every time he disturbs the class.

I figured out the pattern in the 9-times table while I was home sick and told my fifth-grade teacher about it when I got back. He had me tell the class. It is SOOO easy!

That Joan crack will get him a one way ticket to the principal’s office

I think her coffee cup may be stretching the truth.

9×7 is the only one that was hard for me. 63 Seemed like such an odd number to remember.

There’s a trick I learned. So lets say you want to learn what 6×9 is. Whell you get your both hands out and put down your sixth finger. There is 5 fingers before your sixth finger and four fingers after. So 6×9=54

7 × 6 is 42, which is the answer to life, the universe and everything!