I had just come home from a late class. After eating and working on an english reading I sat down to do my algebra homework. It was 10:00. For most people this is not a problem, but my brain stops working at 9:30. I can play checkers or read, but math is out of the question. None the less, I fought the fog and started working.

(3/X+1)+ (4/X^2) = (17/5X)

I wondered who came up with this stuff. I understood the problem, and knew given enough time it could be done, but it seemed that these problems were created by sadistic monsters. I looked at the beginning of the book. It showed smiling middle-aged mathematics professors. There were 5 of them. This was quite surprising for some reason. It made logical sense that a book that takes us a year to skim should take several people a long time to write, but for some reason I had always assumed that mathematics professors sit in small dark rooms alone and write this stuff.

The clock blasted seagulls. I yawned, it was 11:00. That clock was bugging the crap out of me. It had been playing its seagull and wave sound every hour, every night, even at 2 in the morning. I got up and took the clock off the wall. Turning it over, I looked for some way to stop the acursed beach sounds that did not involve a welding torch. It had two battery cases; one with one AA and another with two AA's. I took out the single AA. The clock stopped. I put it back in and took out the other two. The annoying soundtrack stopped. I shook my head. When it takes twice the power to make a wave crashing noise than it does to run a clock 24/7, you know the noise is too loud.

I went back to my algebra. I wondered if I could get away with finding the address of one of the publishers and sending them some hate mail. I decided it would probably not be a good idea, unless I used untraceable e-mail or something. I then wondered if I could get away with calling them up and pretending to be writing an article for the school newspaper. This was slightly more appealing, as it would give me an excuse to question their life's goal without sounding rude. The only problem was that they would probably want to know a little about the article, and there would be no article since our school doesn't have a newspaper.
I finished the last problem and got up. If I ever use some algebra that I don't make up myself, I'm going to put on a little pink tutu and invite people to "Eat at Burger Heaven!"

I think the only effect will be a drop in business at Burger Heaven.


In the unlikely event that you are wondering, one of the answers to that problem is 4. I know that because I made the problem up. There are probably 2 answers, since it would end up as a quadratic equation. If anyone finds out what the other answer is please tell me.