Today is Pi Day! March 14th. Three one four. 3.14 – Pi! Get it!? Guck guck guck.
Pi Day didn’t exist back in my youth. It was only discovered about 3 or 4 years ago and schools across the land have been using it ever since as an excuse to eat pie during math class.
And because I’m that kind of amazingly organized mom, on the day BEFORE Pi Day, I made two pies – one for each kid’s math class. (And by “made” I mean “bought at WalMart’s bakery department” but you have to give me snaps for the plan ahead approach!) Snap, snap, snap.
Anyway, when I announced the good news to Sonny last night, his response was, “But Mom, I signed up to bring icecream.”
Me: “Icecream?! No! It’s Pi Day, not icecream day!!” I like a clever math joke, but I’m not down with kids using it as a reason to eat favorite desserts during the first class of the day. “No. No icecream. You’re bringing pie.”
Him: “Ok. But do you even KNOW what Pi is?”
Me: “Of course! It’s 3.149367523…” I completely made up everything after the 3.14 but it sounded impressive. It’s always important to sound impressive when discussing math.
Him: “No, I mean do you know WHAT it’s used for?”
Me: “Sure.”
Him: “Ok…what then?”
Me: “You act like you don’t know so I’m not sure I should tell you. If you haven’t covered it in class yet, I may confuse you. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you after all.”
Him: “Mooom!”
Me: “Ok, you asked for it so don’t blame me if you don’t understand it.”
Still me: See note above about sounding impressive when discussing math. “It’s the quadrangular way of calculating the unilateral arm of an isosceles triangle.”
Him: “What?! No way. You think icecream on Pi Day doesn’t make sense. But that?! That made NO sense.”
Me: “Alright Pi Man, let’s hear it. What IS Pi?”
At that point he gave me an explanation about circle circumference and radius calculations blah, blah, blah. I won’t repeat it here because I don’t think it was right. Also? It made Pi sound completely irrational. Ha, ha. See what I did there?! Irrational!??! Talk about a clever math joke! Snap, snap, snap.