Riding in Cars

My sister, who's first name starts with an "L," and will hereto for be referred upon as "Elle,", recently acquired a car from my parents at the porn store. Last night she and I were out  knocking over trash cans running errands with a couple of the kids and stopped by the gas station to fill up before continuing on to do evil good.

Elle got out to pump the gas while I entertained the three girls by turning up the radio and going through Elle's glove box. Sometimes she accuses me of having zero awareness of personal space, so I like to go through her stuff when she's not around so that I don't make her feel uncomfortable.

I was almost done when she flung the door open and let in the stink of gasoline fumes and the thirty below cold weather. I wasn't about to stop because I like to see things through to the end, so I kept digging while she shoved a receipt in my face.

Elle: Let's see how badly Ma1/2E failed us. I want to know what kind of gas mileage my car gets.

Note: Our high school math teacher, Mr. Mahaffey, did in fact turn his name into a fraction. That was only one level of weird that we experienced.

Me: Do not speak to me of math. [slams glove box] You disappoint me.

Elle: [ignoring me] Seriously. If my tank holds 11.9 gallons and I just put in 4.9 gallons... That means... Okay, what's 11.9 minus 4.9? Ok, so I used 7 gallons, right?

Me: [looking through her middle seat compartment] And if the square root of 7 is 21... do you have any gum in here?

Elle: In my purse. And at $3.29 a gallon, times 7 gallons- Right?

Me: [peering out my window at the gas pump] You pumped 4.9 gallons. Which means you could not have possibly used 7 gallons.  How many miles did you drive again?

Elle: 120. Do you have a calculator? Does that guy? [points at station attendant picking at his ear] Ew.

[we both sit for a while puzzling this out, brain waves sparking and smoking]


Me: Oh! Miles divided by gallons. It's 120 divided by 5. What is that? 30?


Elle: Awmygawd. This means I really did bust my butt for a D- in high school math.

Me: I'm so blogging about this.


Note: In case one of you had a math teacher that actually taught you something, you'd know what we now know: 120 divided by 5 is more like 24, not 30.