I’m an adult now and as a consequence, when I go to dinner it’s usually with other adults, otherwise it looks creepy. On the whole I like adults. They cry less than kids and they don’t make me feel old if I mention anything that happened before 1995. However, my recent studies show that adults are increasingly recoiling at the thought of basic addition and subtraction, at least around the dinner table.
Here’s how it works. Some number of adults, more than four, goes to dinner. A smaller number of them will order adult drinks, like martinis, microbrews, Harvey Wallbangers, etc. After the meal, the idea of looking at the numbers on the bill and adding up the ones that pertain to each individual’s consumption will be deemed ludicrous. The bill will simply be divided by the number of adults and those who do not drink or eat steak will help subsidize those who do so that everyone will be spared the horrors of arithmetic.
Recognizing that this is now the fashionable way to dine out with adults, you can of course also order steak and things that end in -tini in order to make sure that you ‘get yours’ when the final tally comes, responding to the tragedy of the commons like incentive to wipe out the bar and kitchen in an effort to pull even with your fellow diners. If you’re paying for their deserts, you should have one too! The only alternative is to be the one person who complains about not wanting to pay for your neighbor’s salmon and 3 white russians @ 8.50 per when all you had was a salad and a glass of water, but then you force everyone to deal with those horrible numbers. Perhaps after you’ve had enough to drink the fear of + and – signs will seem completely reasonable.
I’ll conduct further research, next seeing if just buying an Xbox and never leaving the house solves any of these problems.
April 1, 2007 at 6:48 am
I have data points to support your initial findings. Often, what I will do in these situtations is say “My salad and water are $7, so you just divide up the balance.” It is amazing to me, as well, that division seems to be easier than addition. Isn’t division higher-level math? Or is it the fact that we learned that concept less long ago?
May 25, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Yes, this sucks when money matters. I think it’s the glory of graduating between “$25 is very meaningful to me” in my finances to “not” that makes this an issue. While I’m now in the latter category (eh, not bragging, just stating a point) I was long long in the former and pretty peeved when I’d do my best to save some bucks and the keeper o’ the bil would simply say “lets split” for his duck and manhattans against my eggplant sandwich and beer. So- I learned to I simply grab the bill quickly when it came and said I’ll write down my balance on the back, starting a trend among the table members…