words : everyday innumeracy
Yesterday at my local mom-n-pop grocery store, I bought eight lemons for fifty cents each and two limes for sixty-five cents each. At the checkout, the late-teen cashier rang up my purchase. I guess something was awry with her register’s multiplication function, because she ended up charging me fifty cents for all the lemons and sixty-five cents for both the limes, a total of $1.15. I waited a couple seconds to see if she would catch the error, but she was just waiting for me to pay the total she quoted to me. It was tempting.
“I don’t think you charged me enough.”
“Huh?”
“The lemons are fifty cents each, not fifty cents for all. The limes are sixty-five cents each. That should add up to more than $1.15, don’t you think? Wouldn’t 10 pieces of fruit usually cost more than a dollar?”
“Huh?”
I don’t think she ever really understood what I was saying. We did the math together out loud. “Fifty times eight is $4.00. Sixty-five times two is $1.30. For a total of $5.30.” And that’s what I paid her. I was amused to see that she had no problem figuring out how to void the previous total before entering the new one.
I don’t think the local high school is a bad school by any stretch. Is it that we have become so dependent on computers to do basic math functions for us that we stop even doing estimates on our own? It amazed me that she couldn’t see that the price she told me wasn’t anywhere near realistic.
I have to admit I was relieved that I didn’t have to calculate 7.25% sales tax in my head.diamond dogs divx download free god told me to movie download free 18 year old virgin
