Carolyn Jamison pulls onto campus and
finds a parking space in the bottom lot. She scans the front plates
of the cars across from her, decorative, of course; Pennsylvania
requires only back plates: Steelers. JESUS in the Keystone State. i >
u.
She steps from her car, approaches this
last plate, tries to juggle the various meanings in her head.
She
assigns a number to the letter i (9) and another to the u (21). 9
> 21. No. The expression
makes no sense mathematically.
I is greater than you. She
frowns: Grammatical mistakes drive her mad. She slides the is
over in her mind, like a Chicklets-gum square from one of those
plastic picture puzzles, inserting the word am in its place. I
am greater than you.
The
expression is heavy and mean and ugly. She glares at it. As she
watches, it falls at her feet, splinters apart and loses its meaning.
Three harmless symbols splattered upon asphalt.
She
steps on the >, crushing it beneath the heel of her boot, nodding,
satisfied, as she hears it snap. She rearranges it into an uneven
equal sign. She replaces the expression on the metal plate. I is
equal to you.
She
shrugs. Still incorrect grammatically, but at least the equation is
balanced.
She
smiles, hoists her messenger bag up on her shoulder and heads up the
hill towards her algebra class.
A math and grammar nerd, sounds like several people I know.
ReplyDeleteI find more insulting bumper stickers than plates, in my experience. Makes me mad when I'm following behind someone with a narrow-minded slogan stickered to the car lol
ReplyDeleteCrushing it beneath her boot.. satisfying.. good for her. I spend too much time trying to decipher those plates driving on the freeways.
ReplyDeletePersonalized plates drive me crazy. Figuring them out gives me something to do when parked on the freeway, though. I like how she 'fixed' it, though!
ReplyDeleteUgh. I can't imagine having the. . .whatever it takes. . .to put something like that on my car. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteMy Dad used to have plates that read "I LEASE", which is what he did. We even made fun of that.
ReplyDeleteI like this stickler lady!
Good for Carolyn!
ReplyDeleteHa. Would that we could do that in real life; the stuff people put on their cars is far too often that kind of BS.
ReplyDeleteThe tone you took with this adds so much to her need to figure things out. She's very efficient. Her mind is neat and tidy. I really feel like I"m almost in there with her! Excellent!
ReplyDeleteher OCD definitely made its mark
ReplyDelete