(I am making a day trip with my teenage niece. To keep her busy on the train, I bought a book with sudokus for beginners. Keep in mind that she doesn’t believe in herself and thinks she is bad at maths.)

Me: “Here you go.”

Niece: “Sudoku? Isn’t that difficult?”

Me: “Not really. And these are super easy.”

(I explain how sudokus work and she starts. She completes the grid in no time and with ease as if she is writing a letter. She completes a second and third one in under a minute, sighs, turns the book to the last sudoku and completes that one in record time, as well.)

Niece: “Auntie, this is too easy.”

Me: “So I see. You know what? I’ll buy you a new one for the ride home.”

(True to my word, I bought one that was one level under “expert,” and she happily worked herself through them. Those took a bit more time to be solved. I finished the super easy ones.)

(My husband and I are following a set of instructions that include the phrase, “Press gently, but very firmly.” We are getting frustrated by the fact that, a) it doesn’t seem to be doing much, and b) they haven’t elaborated more on HOW gently, HOW firmly, etc. It should be noted that my husband is a mechanical engineer.)

Husband: “Just how firmly do they mean?”

Me: *somewhat snarky* “’Press gently, but with a force of however many PSI…’”

(PSI stands for “Pounds per Square Inch.”)

Husband: “No, PSI would be too large for something this small. I don’t have anywhere near an inch to push on here.”

Me: “Okay… How about PS-half-inch? PS-quarter-inch?”

Husband: “That’s not going to work, either. You probably need something in metric measurements. They scale down more easily.”

Me: *a bit snarky again* “Okay, fine. PSCM? Pounds per square centimeter?”

(My husband got a horrified look on his face and told me this was why I was not an engineer. Apparently, one cannot mix metric and imperial units quite as easily as I thought. I assumed that there would be an equation that could calculate it, but apparently, such an equation would be a massive pain to work with.)

This story is part of our Metric System roundup!

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(I am an 18-year-old, new nursing student at my local college. We are doing our first ever med pass. As I’m a nervous wreck, I make a small error in my dosage calculation. The instructor is pretty laid back.)

Me: “I will give half a tablet.”

Instructor: “Who in the world taught you how to do math?!”

Me: “Your mom.”

(He looked at me like I was insane before realizing that I graduated from the high school where his mother teaches math. Yes, she really did teach me Algebra 1. We had a good laugh about it.)

(I am checking out at a local grocery store. If you shop using reusable bags at this particular store, you get $0.03 off for each bag you use. The cashier has just finished ringing me up.)

Cashier: “Okay, how many reusable bags did you use today, sir?”

Me: “Nine.”

(She turns to her register and pauses for a moment, as if she is confused.)

Me: “The discount should be $0.27.”

(She looks at her register again, and then calls over a passing coworker.)

Cashier: “Hey, [Coworker], what’s nine times $0.03?”

Coworker: “$0.27.”

Cashier: “You sure?”

Me: “I’m pretty sure he’s right. The discount should be $0.27, like we both told you.”

(She gave me a skeptical look but proceeded to apply the discount regardless. It boggles my mind to think about how people are able to get jobs that involve a lot of mathematics when they cannot even demonstrate elementary-level multiplication.)

(My store is currently having a sale where customers get 50% off their highest-priced item as long as their total is over $100. A lady comes up to my register. She’s only buying one jacket, but it costs $140, so she’ll get the discount. I get her phone number so that she can also get her [Store] membership discount of an additional 5%. The membership discount rings up automatically, but in order to get the 50% discount, I have to enter a code. I scan the jacket, turn to put it on the counter behind me to get it out of my way, and then turn back, preparing to type in the discount code. Before I can, however:)

Customer: *squinting suspiciously at the total that’s displayed on the card reader’s screen* “Wait, that’s not quite right, is it? This jacket should be $100. And don’t I get 50% off? I won’t buy it any other way.”

Me: “Yep, it is 50% off. I just have to type in a code and then it’ll show up. And you also get an extra 5% off because you’re a [Store] member!”

(I type in the code, which brings the total down to somewhere above $70 after tax. This is usually the part where the customer says, “Much better!” and possibly even apologizes for their impatience, and pays. Not this lady, though.)

Customer: *still squinting at the card reader’s display* “Okay… Hold on…”

(She actually pulls out her phone and starts typing numbers into the calculator. I just facepalm internally and wait, because no, this is not, in fact, the first time a customer has pulled out their calculator to double-check that our register has done the math correctly — the register that probably uses the exact same software as their phone’s app to do the calculation.)

Customer: “Okay, hang on. I’m getting a different number than what’s displaying here. So, starting with the original price of $140, minus a 6% discount—”

Me: *interrupting, trying to get ahead of a possible angry tirade* “It’s a 5% discount.”

Customer: “Oh, it’s 5%? Okay, that might be it.”

(She then retypes in all the math she has just done, having to start over again multiple times because she keeps typing things in wrong. I try my best to wait patiently, but I have about a million things I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m not even supposed to be putting up with this in the first place; I’m only there to fill in for a coworker who called out sick. At last, she finishes her calculations and I guess she comes up with the same total as the register because she finally agrees to pay.)

Customer: “I mean, 50% just seems like such a big amount, y’know? But I guess not.”

(It’s 50%. It took off half the price of the jacket. What do you want?)  

Customer: *as she’s taking her receipt and the bag with the jacket in it* “I’m not even sure I like this jacket. I might have to return it if I can’t find anything to wear it with. And the buttons are a bit too much, don’t you think? I might have to put smaller buttons on it.”

(And that is the story of how a customer wasted five minutes of my time quibbling over the price of a jacket she didn’t even want in the first place. I will never understand humans.)