Geometry

Last weekend, I was out to dinner with three friends. Since it was a cool, spring evening, we went for a stroll after dinner through one of Chicago’s trendier neighborhoods. By “trendy”, I mean that we came across a boutique that specialized in sex toys and sundry forms of adult naughtiness. 

So, of course, we went in for a laugh. Soon, a friend of mine spotted a rather alarming device that instantly reminded me of an amorous Shetland pony I had as a child. “That thing’s three inches in diameter!” he exclaimed. “How many inches is that in circumference?” 

“Multiply the diameter by pi,” I replied, drolly. “About nine and a half.”

They were impressed. 

(I then had to explain to him what ‘pi’ was. I’m glad we weren’t dating. The magic would have been over at that point). 

I got to thinking about the times in geometry and algebra classes when a student would complain, “When are we ever going to use this stuff?”

I now want to be a geometry substitute teacher. The next time a 15 year-old kid whines, “When are we ever going to use this?” I’d be able to say, “Trust me. Someday, you’ll be in a sex shop with your friends, encounter a huge, nasty sex toy and your friends will query about its circumference. You’ll be able to impress them by being able to easily factor it on the spot.”

Needless to say, I was a good geometry student.