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Friday, September 19, 2008

Overdrawn


Some people are, truly, too sensible for their own good.

Atticus is struggling to understand why, why, why someone would even attempt to subtract any number from zero. Clearly, to paraphrase Wilbur, you can't have less than nothing. Nothing is, by definition, nothing. It's as clear as night and day--and Atticus is very much into clarity.

So to say that you can, actually, have less than nothing ... well, it hurts my sensible boy's brain.

How many times have I said in the past week: "Atticus, honey ... you cannot just flip the problem. You can't. The top number has to stay on top."

Countless times.

Hasn't mattered one. iota. Atticus still refuses to acknowledge that something can, in fact, be less than nothing.

Finally, I went back to the old object lesson. "See, son? You have five dollars. I take all that you have and ask for one more. So you owe me one. You have one less than zero dollars."

Indignant, Atticus sniffed: "I wouldn't give you any. It's not right."

"Why?" I asked, exasperated.

"I'm not going to spend money I don't have, Mom. What kind of person does that?"

Now who's the sensible one?



5 comments:

Liz said...

lol..out of the mouths of babes

Unknown said...

Love it! Aticus is on the right track!

Anonymous said...

LOL! Too funny!

-Ajoy

Anonymous said...

Atticus for president...

...that's all I have to say about that.

Luke Holzmann said...

Oh my, you can't argue with that kind of logic. Now how do you teach them negative numbers?

Hmm... perhaps the hyper logic and analytical mind would do well to realize that every subtraction subtrahend is, in a sense, a negative number. 8 + (-9) = -1

Just tossing stuff out. But, yes, he is well on his way to financial success... and, I agree with Steve, would do very well as President [smile].

~Luke