Math, Michael Myers & Madness

For me, the world pretty much breaks up into three basic categories: words, numbers and everything else. And out of all the subcategories that fall under the basic ones, there are very few things that can conceptually scare me as much as math.

Math was always the one subject I could never excel at. I couldn’t even come close to being decent at it. Remember the kid in math class who was asking to copy your homework ten minutes before class and always had that panicked “oh fuck” look on their face during tests? That was me. I always took the road less numerically traveled and that made all the difference; i.e., permitted me to scrape by, thus dragging down my otherwise impressive (honk, honk) GPA.

The logic required to grasp mathematical concepts ran away from my brain sometime during eighth grade and has never been seen since. I never bothered looking for it.

Avoiding math at all costs became my mode of survival and directly/indirectly contributed to my choosing English as a major in college. The thought that I’ll never have to take another math class as long as I live and breathe, allows me to sleep at night with a soundness unlike any other.

However, you know how some people have nightmares about falling to their deaths or being trapped in a room with a limited supply of oxygen? Sadly, I have those about math.

Not surprisingly, last night I was plagued by a nightmare about getting a “D” on a math test that I had no recollection of ever taking. I kept looking at it, thinking, how could I get a “D” if I only got ten out of one-hundred questions wrong? In what alternate universe did 90% become a “D!”

I was even more frustrated when some kid tried to explain the teacher’s perplexingly intricate grading system. And the fact that I couldn’t quite understand this system of curves, slopes and numbers, angered me even more because math was now fucking me harder than ever before.

Frustratingly enough, my dream sort of faded right before I approached the teacher about my grade, so I never really understood why I got the unjust grade that I did. But regardless, it made me feel like shit.

Then my dream sort of switched over to me sitting in the back of a moving car and Michael Myers chasing me with a large knife. (Think “Jurassic Park” when Jeff Goldblum is sitting backwards in backseat of the Jeep and the T-Rex is chasing dangerously close behind.). Only I kept kicking the crap out of Mike Myers and he just wouldn’t stop. That went on for a few minutes and I eventually woke up in a dry-mouthed sweaty panic.

The ironically sad part? I’ll take the Mike Myers dream over the math one any day of the week and twice on Sunday.