Math Is Hard: Obamacare Edition

Yesterday the incredibly fair and balanced Fox News aired this informative graph, which attempted to illustrate the current shortfall in Obamacare enrollment (which is pretty much all they've talked about on air for the past year).

As you can see, they apparently went back in time and hired my twelve year old self to create the chart for them. Only a kid with math skills like mine at that age could have made a chart that shows six million equal to roughly a third of seven million. Fair and balanced indeed!

Whatever your feelings toward Obamacare, you've got to admit that's some twisted math there.

Later in the day they aired a "corrected" version of the chart, accompanied by an apology from Fox anchor Bill Hemmer. Which of course translates to "an intern noticed our chart was being ruthlessly mocked on every blog in the country, and we hurriedly tried to salvage what little credibility we could."

Tales From The Grocery: Math Is Hard!

A year ago I got a second job as a cashier at a grocery store in order to pay off some bills. It was a miserable, humiliating and demoralizing experience in every measurable sense, and I got the hell out of there as soon as my bills were paid. I feel genuinely sorry for anyone who has to work in such a place.

Here's a special Math Is Hard edition of Tales From The Grocery. All Tales are 100% true. Enjoy.

• A lady came through my checkout line and was buying four 6-Packs of Pepsi. She stared very intently at the register screen as I rang them up. Suddenly she screeched, “Those are supposed to be 4 for $10!” I looked at the screen and each 6-Pack was ringing up at $2.50. I said “They are.” Again she bellowed, “They’re supposed to be 4 for $10! I want them for $10! I'm not leaving until I get them for $10! I want to speak to a manager!”

For a second I considered just pushing one of the non-functioning buttons on the register, making a "boop" noise with my mouth and saying, "There! It's all fixed!"

In the end though I sighed hard and explained to her that as a general rule, four times $2.50 works out to $10.

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• One day the store had a sale on select candy bars, five for $2. A woman came up to my register and asked me how much just one would cost. This was a grown-ass woman who drove a car and had a job and she asked me this. I sighed again, expelling the last tattered remains of my soul from the hollow husk of my body and told her 40¢.

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• One week the store was running a special in which buying ten select items would take $5 off your bill. The register was programmed to automatically take the $5 off; I didn't have to remember to do so.

A lady came through my line with a cart load of groceries. After I rang them all up she said, "I bought the ten items, did I get the $5 off? I want that $5 off." I looked at the register screen and it said "minus $10." I said, "Nope, you got $10 off. You must have bought some extras of the sale items."

She started getting indignant, as today's Entitled American tends to do and said, "I'm supposed to get $5 off! I want the $5 off! Where is my $5 off?" I pointed out to her yet again that she was getting a full $10 off, rather than $5. Again she shrieked, "I WANT THAT $5 OFF!!!"

Finally I said, "Are you really arguing with me about getting $10 off your groceries instead of $5?" At last reality set in and she realized what she'd been demanding and clammed up.