Dear Aunt Sally Is Done Being Excused
Do you give a shit about the order of operations? Neither do I.
Do you give a shit about the order of operations? Neither do I. But here we are back to school, back to math, and back to Parentheses then Exponents then Multiplication and Division then Addition and Subtraction. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
I’m Dear Aunt Sally — everyone’s Dear Aunt Sally — and I am OVER being a scapegoat.
I’ve been a one woman vehicle for the abnegation of responsibility for far too long. THIS MUST END, immediately and completely. Like a line segment, the Sopranos finale, or my Tinder relationships.
That fourth grader, who said 5 X 3 + 2 was 25 (egregious!) and even added a smiley face? She learned the correct answer is 17 — “My” before “Aunt”, Multiplication before Addition — only by excusing me, Dear Aunt Sally, for a mysterious faux pas. Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally.
Look ahead ten years. There she is, farting in the elevator, looking around at everyone else. Maybe Dear Aunt Sally had a burrito for lunch! Maybe Dear Aunt Sally is the only one on the planet — a one out of 7.65 billion odds! — who never heard of gluten free. PLEASE EXCUSE HER!
That 10 year old, with a big wide smile and a Snoopy pencil in his hand? He can only solve 6–4 ÷ 2 x (4 + 7) — (2 + 0) because society drilled into him that Dear Aunt Sally is a hot mess. PLEASE EXCUSE HER FOR ALL THE HOT MESSES THAT HOT MESSES LIKE DEAR AUNT SALLY GET INTO, HOTLY AND MESSILY!
Just so you know, fifteen years later, that kid is selling predatory mortgages without a qualm. Maybe Dear Aunt Sally can flip some properties, maybe rustle on up some mortgage-backed securities in a pinch! Please excuse her for the financial crisis! Dear Aunt Sally!
For the record, I never, ever sought an unpaid job in math education. I did not ask be Aunt Zero in building the perfect sociopath. When they say cherchez la femme, I did not push to be the femme that everyone cherchezs. Got that?
Here’s the joke. No, not the joke “why is six afraid of seven, because seven ate nine”, or any other math joke. I mean the cosmic joke. The irony. I’m not the most “qualified” candidate to teach all of you math. The whole future of the knowledge-based economy on the shoulders of Dear Aunt Sally, who doesn’t even do pilates. PLEASE EXCUSE HER! Oh, and I mean “qualified” in the sense of a BAD thing, like most likely to space out and get lost on your way to your locker, like a negative times a positive is still a fucking negative, OK?
But I digress.
The reason for my under-qualification is there is no “LR” anywhere in my name. LR as in Left to Right. Division before multiplication if division is to the left of multiplication. 8 ÷ 8 X 2 equals 2, not one-half. This shit gets real.
Still don’t get it? Left to right? The way you are reading this? The same direction in which atomic radii decrease across the periodic table? The same direction of a Brown University alum at tax time? LEFT TO RIGHT! LR!
I ask you, am I “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally Laughing Ridiculously”? “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, Literary Recluse”? “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (who) Likes Rap”? (If you read that and still want to excuse me, you are a racist.) No, no, and no — I am Dear Aunt Sally.
Dear Aunt Sally. Fall guy. Enabler. Joke. Victim. Sacrificial lamb.
No more. I tender my resignation. Excuse someone else, or decide not to excuse them and beat them to a pulp, but LEAVE ME OUT OF IT.
Rachel Geman is a lawyer, mother, game constructor, and comedy writer. She’s written for Points in Case, WICF Daily, and, now, The Belladonna.
