Friday, March 06, 2009

The Limit Does Not Exist

Last night the kids got "Movie Night with Linda" and Bump and I got "away for a drink." A good time was had by all, and a good time and much beer was had by me.

Aunt Bob joined Bump and me and we talked and laughed and I composed a HIGH-larious post about it on my blackberry. Of course it made absolutely no sense this morning. Not only was the post not funny without the beer, it was completely incomprehensible. It seems my drunken thumbs can't spell for shit. Or punctuate.

But here's the gist: Use math to solve a real-world problem.

A bar offers $1.50 pints on Wednesdays. On Tuesdays, that same bar charges $4.95 for the first pint but only $2.00 for each refill.

Now, you might think that Wednesday will always be a better day to visit the bar than Tuesday, but wait! Because we belong to the special club, our Tuesday pints become SUPER MUGS.

So I asked Bump - my Math Genius Husband - "How many beers to I have to drink on Tuesday to make it a better deal than Wednesday?"

He thought for a minute. Then he pulled out a scrap of paper and created a formula and did calculations in his head and scribbled furiously and thought some more. Watching him work was like watching an artist paint - or a chef cook - or insert some other analogy wherein you watch someone with a true gift for something use it for a fantastic purpose. (The gift being math and the purpose being beer and thrift, of course. Sigh.)

This is him explaining that the two lines are roughly parallel. Or something.

He made his first calculation based on the SUPER MUGS containing 22 oz. of beer. Then the waiter said the SUPER MUGS were 20 oz. and that threw everything off and [wail] [gnash teeth] Tuesday was never a better deal than Wednesday.

But then! We realized that on Tuesday you get to take a pint glass home with you. Once we adjusted the equation for the glassware having some value (about $3.50) it only took four beers to make Tuesday a bargain.

This is important, see, because on Wednesday the bar is packed with twenty-somethings and you can't get a table and it's loud and more old person grumble mumble.

Okay, fine. Math is not funny. I can't make it funny. I think the drunken post had some mention of nipples and whipped cream, but I don't think even that can redeem this post now.

So I'll give you a photo of Bump in a hat.
The bar was giving out free hats last night. You may see this exact same hat on Nathan Jr in the future, but I'm not making any promises. Especially if it's Tuesday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, we have a couple of those hats too.

I hope you had a beer for me. I love Rock Bottom and even though it's so close to me I rarely get to go there and actually drink. :-)

Sounds like you had a fun night!

Auntly H said...

I am a big enough dork to both appreciate Bump's math wizardry and find humor in a post about math. Sadly, I am unlikely to ever drink enough beer to make Tuesday a better deal.

Anonymous said...

Um.

What?

Em said...

I can't even follow the math while completely sober! So funny.