I moved to Texas and they made me take Algebra 1 again because I hadn’t taken the high school version, even though I was also in Algebra 2. I had the same teacher for both.

Both classes used those fancy, $80+ calculators, which they expected us to buy. I tried to do things longhand, but my teacher got angry at me for it. I got Ds that first semester because I didn’t have a calculator and the use of those calculators was so confusing. I felt like I was taking an advanced programming class, not a math class!

Anyway, I did learn eventually, and I tried to learn as much longhand as I could; I didn’t want to become dependent on the calculator. She still refused to teach it, even after I begged for after-school sessions or a tutor or anything.

By the end of the year, I was just as calculator-dependent as the rest of them. Now, I should mention that this teacher was best friends with the Pre-Calculus teacher. I signed up for her class for my junior year. Do you want to know what she said on the first day?

“If you’re calculator-dependent, you’re going to fail.”

This story is part of our Pi Day Math roundup!

Read the next Pi Day Math roundup story!

Read the Pi Day Math roundup!

(I am evacuating from a hurricane with my 92-year-old grandmother and her dog. Traffic is bumper to bumper.)

Granny: “Why doesn’t the slow poke up there pull over so we can pass?”

Me: “There’s not one slow poke. The road just isn’t big enough for this many cars.”

Granny: “Well, if they’re having car trouble, they should push their car off the road so we can get by.”

Me: “They aren’t having car trouble. There’s just too many cars in a long line trying to leave.”

Granny: “Why doesn’t the first car just go faster?”

Me: “There’s not one car in front. The roads are just full of people trying to get out.”

Granny: “But why doesn’t the slow poke just pull over and let us pass?”

Me: *gives up*

(I am at a convenience store getting gasoline, cigarettes, and a soda. It’s a small store, with only two pumps. As I pull in, I notice one of the nozzles has a large yellow plastic bag on it clearly marked, “Out Of Order,” so I pull my car around the other side, get out and go in the store to pay for my gas. As I am crossing the parking lot, another truck pulls up to the other [broken] pump but I don’t think much about it. As I am in the back of the store getting my drink, I hear the clerk speak into the intercom and tell the driver of the truck that pulled in after me that the pump is broken, meaning that the guy has tried to use it, in spite of the big yellow bag over the nozzle. Just as I am getting up to the counter to pay for my things, he sticks his head in the door and yells at the cashier:)

Truck Driver: *very rudely* “Are you the one who told me the pump was broken?!”

Cashier: “Yes.”

Truck Driver: *shouting* “Well, you could have marked the g**-d***ed thing as broken!”

(Before the cashier has a chance to say anything, I say:)

Me: “You mean other than the bright yellow bag that said, ‘out of order,’ on it?”

(The truck driver stares a hole through me and turns around, gets in his truck, and leaves.)

Cashier: “I appreciate that; I would have had to be nice.”

Me: “You can get fired; I can’t.”

(I’ve had a horribly rough day at work and want one of my favorite drinks, a butterbeer blended ice drink, similar to a frappuccino, from my regular coffee shop. It’s a rarely-purchased item, because it takes a lot of extra syrup shots and costs close to $8, but I figure the day I’ve had is worth the cost.)

Me: *to barista* “Can I get a butterbeer frappe, please?”

Customer: *behind me* “Oooh, what’s that?”

Me: “It’s five shots of hazelnut, four of vanilla, and two of caramel; then you top it with whip cream and caramel sauce. You can do the coffee blend or the vanilla blend; it tastes good either way. But it’s expensive!”

Customer: “Is it on their secret list?”

Me: “No, but a friend of mine who works here made the drink up, and we’ve always come here when we need one.”

(I sit down to wait for my drink, which comes out at the same time as the one for the other customer I’d been talking to earlier. However, when I grab for my drink, I realize it doesn’t have my name on it and start to look around for the other cup.)

Me: “Hey, [Barista], I thought you said mine was ready?”

Barista: “It is… wait, d*** it. I made a point to set that other girl’s drink to the side for her, because she was eyeing yours. She grabbed your cup, didn’t she? D*** it. I’ll make yours up again, sorry.” *glares at the other customer, who is looking smug*

Me: *approaching the customer’s table* “You have my drink.”

Customer: *smiles as she puts her straw in the drink and sips from it* “I don’t think so. I think I got the right one, and yours is on the counter still.” *when she sets it down, I notice my name on it and all the markings which clearly indicates she grabbed the wrong one*

Me: “Your name is [My Name]?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Then you got the wrong drink. Maybe you should give it back and get the drink you actually ordered, instead of stealing other people’s drinks.”

Customer: “Oh my God, get over yourself. Just buy yourself another drink.”

(When she raises her drink again, I make a point to smack it so drops out of her hand and falls on the floor.)

Me: “Oops. Seems like you don’t get that drink, either. Yours might still be on the counter, though.”

(She screamed at me for knocking the drink out of her hand, but I was already in such a rage that I walked out without grabbing my drink. My friend called me later about the incident and said that the customer had been kicked out when she threw both her drink and my replacement drink at the barista. I got a card for five free butterbeer frappes from the owner of the place when I called her to apologize for my actions. She said she’d have done the same thing. I did get stuck with mopping the floors as a way of making up for my actions, though.)

I’m a teacher. Our school has a cloud that holds all of our lesson plans, grades, everything. We are required to use it, and can even get in trouble if we don’t. I keep resources on my home computer. The finished product gets uploaded to the cloud. I’m not technically supposed to do this, but I have had these since before I worked here, and they’re too messy to sort.

My first year at this school was okay. I didn’t have the problem I had with another school- kids being forced to take my class instead of the one they wanted- so, most of my classes actually wanted to learn! My boss was okay, too.

Two weeks before the next new school year, I looked online, and everything had been wiped. I received an email saying that the grades and other personal data had been wiped for privacy reasons, but they wiped my lesson plans, too! This had to be a mistake. I called my principal.

He told me, “We have new standards for teaching every year, so you wouldn’t even be able to use them! It’s easier to wipe them all so teachers don’t have to go through a revision process when they submit old plans.”

I was stunned. First of all, plans can be modified, and it’s easier to modify than to create an entirely new thing from scratch. Secondly, TWO WEEKS?! Two weeks to plan an entire year? Thirdly, I was no longer ashamed of my secret resource stash (which would have been deleted, too)!

After somewhat of a breakdown, I picked through the mess of resources and cobbled together the first semester. At the first teacher’s meeting, I was the only one who had gotten that far.