Friday, January 10, 2003
Friday, January 10, 2003 |
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new year means more and more new things you have to remember
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By Rick Ryckeley Here it is again: another new year, and with it comes more stuff you gotta remember. One of the most important things to remember from the very first day of the New Year is to write 2003 on checks instead of 2002. Well, that is unless you want to look like a moron. Say hello to Mr. Moron. If this year is like past ones, I'll get this important factoid right sometime mid-July. Have you ever noticed that everything we do nowadays is somehow attached to remembering a slue of numbers? For me, the trouble remembering numbers started way back in Ms. Newsome's kindergarten class. The first day of kindergarten, Ms. Newsome told everyone which bus to ride home. My bus number was 569. I know this was correct 'cause I wrote it in crayon in my math book. My math book had lots of numbers so I'd figured a few more would be okay Ms. Newsome thought otherwise. I had to stand in the corner for an hour. At the end of the day, I took my seat on bus 569 and waited 'til it was time for my stop to get off. My stop never came. At the end of the route I was the only kid left on the bus. Seems I was suppose to get on bus 596, not 569. Wonder how Ms. Newsome made that mistake? In first grade I had to learn my home phone number and the fire department's. Back then, if you needed a fire truck or emergency medical treatment, you'd dial the local fire department phone number for help. With three brothers and one sister, I knew the fire department's number better than my own. A phone number used to be easy to remember - not so anymore. My first phone number was only five numbers long. Soon there after, they added two more numbers to make it seven. Four years ago they thought it was a good idea to add three more numbers. Now we have ten numbers to dial. If you call someone at home and no one answers you can page them. That's if you remember the pager number. If you can't get them on their pager, then try their cell phone, but that's just another number you gotta remember. In a few more years, the way they're adding numbers, it'll be faster to drive over to whomever you were gonna call, and just talk to them in person. At least they made calling the fire department easier. All you have to do now is dial three numbers, 9-1-1. Who are "they," you might ask? Well, just read on. Numbers are everywhere. You have to remember your pin number to get money from an ATM, your checking account number if you forget a deposit slip at the bank. Write a check, you must give the cashier your driver's license number and, yes, your ten-digit phone number. You must remember your five-digit pass word in order to access information from your computer at work. When calling about your medical or car insurance, you get an automated response message that prompts you to enter your account number. So why, after punching in your account number, does someone answer the phone and the first thing they ask you for is your account number? Even some cars don't have keys anymore; instead they have a key pad of numbers you push to unlock the doors. So who's behind all of these confusing numbers? Why, some high school math teacher, of course! Just when I got a good grasp of addition, subtraction, and division, high school math teachers added new stuff like square roots, cubes, and pi-r-squared. (Even I learned from Miss Newsome that pie r round, not square.) As a freshman in Algebra I, I learned the Pythagorean Theory, where combinations of numbers with letters are called math. I got news for ya: A2+B2=C2 is not a math problem - ABC are letters. So it's English, not math, but the story about English is still a few weeks away; this story is about numbers. As a junior, I took Algebra II and learned all about quadratic equations. When I questioned my eleventh-grade math teacher as to exactly when in life one would ever use a quadratic equation, she sent me to the office. I've been in the job market now for 25 years and have yet filled out one job application that asked what a quadratic equation was or how one would use it. I still remember that trick question Mr. Baker, my senior math teacher, put on his final exam. The question: Train one was going northeast from Dallas at 30 miles an hour with three ducks and two dogs aboard. It stopped twice to let one duck off and three times to pick up four dogs. Train two was going north from Georgia at fifty miles an hour with a cow and two chickens aboard. It stopped three times more often than train one and picked up six times as many animals. Which got to Pittsburgh first and how many animals would be left on the trains? The answer I wrote was: Zero. Both trains crashed somewhere around Maryland and all the animals ran away. Mister Baker was not amused. I got a C in his class. The Boy wants a cell phone; I said no. That'll be just another number to remember. He said that now, some phones are voice-activated. You don't dial numbers; instead you just speak the person's name and the phone dials the number for you. No more numbers. I like that. I'll ask The Wife if she could buy me one for my birthday. I guess numbers aren't so bad after all. Bill Gates just had to remember the numbers zero and one - look where it got him. [Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at firemanr@bellsouth.net.] |