The day starts normal enough. He wakes up, has his cup of coffee, and scans through the news alerts on his phone. He shakes his head at the latest and continues on with his morning, showering and dressing before throwing a load of laundry in the wash.
He’s supposed to meet Karen and the kids for a movie at 7, but still needs to go grocery shopping before then. He knows that his family will leave the beach at 6 and arrive at the theater fifteen minutes early after taking the highway east and not going any more than 70 mph. He idly wonders how fast he’d have to go to meet them while traveling west when planning to arrive at the same time, but from half the distance.
He thinks about it all the way to the store, parking and exiting his car before dismissing it. He was taught in school to skip hard problems until easier ones were done and then go back to them.
He enters the store and proceeds directly to the fruit section. He has forty dollars to spend on fruit. He sees that the watermelons are on sale 6/$5 and that the apples or on sale for $70 per bushel. He decides that he will spend half of his money on watermelon and half on apples.
After a moment of thought, he puts 24 watermelons in his cart, confident that they were worth $20.
But how many apples were in a bushel? And what percentage of $70 would be $20?
“There are 126 apples, on average, in a bushel,” someone from behind him hisses.
That’s right, he thinks with relief. He knew that. And after a simple calculation, he knows that 20 goes into 70 three and a half times. 126 divided by 3.5, therefore is 36.
It’s as he’s placing his obscenely large fruit purchase on the conveyor belt that he realizes that he’s never known how many apples are in a bushel. Also that, for a family of four, this is much too much fruit.
“Damn it,” he says through gritted teeth, remembering the hissed answer from earlier. That hadn’t been his thought at all. He turns and finds just what he suspected.
A group of math teachers, all with brightly colored pens and clipboards clutched in their hands, stare at him with wide eyes.
There’s a long, tense moment as he glares at them, foot tapping impatiently. Then he takes a step forward.
“Scatter!” one shouts, shoving his pens haphazardly down the front of his polo shirt. The other teachers crash into each other as they all turn around, tripping and sliding across the linoleum as they fled like startled deer.
The man turns to the cashier. Between them is a veritable wall of apples and watermelons, half already charged.
“I’d like to make some returns,” he practically growls.
The cashier sighs. “Yeah, I figured.” The cashier shakes their head as they begin to void apple after apple. “Freakin’ math teachers.”
The man purses his lips. “Frickin’ math teachers,” he agrees.
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