my dead mouse karma is still good; also, dead hair dryers and a digression on math in everyday life

[edenfalling]

I went down to the cellar to do P&K inventory and bring up the evening supplies and tobacco and stuff, and there in the humidor was a dead mouse in a snap trap. That makes five mice in the four and a half years I've worked at the smoke shop. I have discovered and disposed of four of them, and I set the trap that caught the fifth.

This one had died quite recently, since it was still stiff and not smelly in the least. So I took the trap upstairs, tied the mouse up in two successive plastic bags, and dropped the bag in the city trash can outside our front door. Then I scrubbed the remnants of the Snickers bar off the trap (pieces of Snickers make excellent mouse bait, btw), soaked the trap in bleach water for fifteen minutes, and set it on PM's desk to dry overnight, with an explanatory note.

Presumably someone will reset the trap tomorrow.

---------------

In other news, my hair dryer died on Tuesday. What I think happened is that my upstairs neighbors turned on a vacuum cleaner while I was drying my hair, and the resulting power surge/wobble blew some connection in my dryer -- it would still turn on afterward, but it wouldn't blow air properly, and it quickly started to overheat and smell like something was burning.

So yesterday I trekked down to Bed & Bath on Route 13 and bought a new dryer. It's pretty small and cheap ($19.99 plus sales tax), but I don't need a big dryer, and since this one is collapsible and theoretically adapts to work on European power levels, I can take it with me to Spain if necessary. :-) Also, Bed & Bath is in the habit of scatter-mailing coupons, so I was able to apply a $5.00 discount to the dryer -- that being, in this case, a better deal than applying a 10% off discount (ie, $2.00).

This is, incidentally, about the level of math I ever use in real life. It makes me seriously wonder why I had to learn trigonometry and calculus in high school. Not that I disliked math -- math is actually rather fun, when I am in the mood, and I like the feel of getting an equation nice and balanced and tidy -- but really, what is the point of anything past basic algebra if you're not going to be an engineer or physicist or accountant? (Statistics might be useful, but I never did get to statistics.)

Comments

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

There is actually no point at all to math beyond basic algebra if you're not going to be an engineer, physicist, accountant, statistician, etc. Our school district requires only algebra for a kid to graduate high school. In our house I will be happy if my kid ever manages to take and pass algebra, given how far behind she is.

[edenfalling]

I suppose they teach trig and calculus so that people who do want to go into number-heavy professions don't have to play catch-up all through college, but it does seem rather wasteful for the majority of us who don't. *sigh*

I am so sorry about Swen. Speaking as someone who was rather anti-school in my youth -- this mostly took the form of an intermittent complete refusal to do homework -- there is not much parents can do until she's willing to change and put in the effort herself. My parents fought me on homework all the way from age 10 to 18 and never got far except when I myself was feeling charitable toward particular teachers (or, very occasionally, scared of failing and the consequent public shame). In fact, they inadvertently encouraged me in further bad behavior -- they took away my library card and locked my books in the attic in at attempt to remove distractions, which only taught me how to forge my dad's signature, pick simple padlocks, find really good hiding places in my room, and lie convincingly to their faces. :-(

What you can do is be there and love her. That means a hell of a lot, even if it doesn't look like much from outside.