Mathplexity

by Daniel S. Irwin

In my early years of school, advanced math proved to be most perplexing as, somehow, the whole deal with ratios and proportions totally escaped me. It was kismet, something dictated by the gods, that I would never catch on and was destined to spend my entire grade school career in the second grade as nothing more than a total failure and a disgrace to my family. That is, until one afternoon when, on the way home from school, Marvin MacMichale, a moron of an oaf three times my size, sat on me and repeatedly, brutally pounded my head against the sidewalk. Three times my size? Yes, dear reader, day of days, I, at last, understood the concept of ratios! Unfortunately, my math woes were not completely over as, later that night, while watching a horror movie about a madman with a chain saw, I was instilled with a lifelong fear of division and subtraction.

6S

Daniel S. Irwin, author of The Breakup and a 1980 "Write-In" Presidential Candidate, was abandoned by gypsies and raised in a capitalist commune. His work has been published in Krax, Moodswing, Zygote in My Coffee, Spin, and several other places.