Chapter 15

While Vee confessed to playing on the computer all weekend, The Wanzor went to Vee's classes.

"Oh, I'm not her," went over like a barrel over Niagara Falls. Not great but with a chance of survival ... just. Still, the pop quizzes went well. The Wanzor had been there when the devil added the alphabet to math, so her solutions were correct but her method bore absolutely zero resemblance to the instructional methods taught in today's school. The Wanzor knew 'old school' and 'old school' made it simple.

"Your answer is right but your method is wrong," the Math teacher said.

The Wanzor laid a hand on the math teachers wrist and wound her watch. Not much but it caused the pair to blink out and in. Just a shimmer, hardly noticeable by the rest of the class, but the result had the teacher babbling:

"But ... I don't care if he did invent the genera, his method ... well ... sure it works ... but that's of no earthly use in today's world."

The watch was in operation again and that caused a trip in invisibility where she was a fly on the wall when the NEA District associations got together behind closed doors and decided that certain spelling revisions MUST be made and the long versions would be no longer taught.

"We are decided then, 'Though will become tho, although will be spelled altho, thorough is now thoro, which makes thoroughfare ... thorofare, through is now spelled thru, which changes the spelling of throughout to thruout, catalogue is catalog, decalogue is decalog, demagogue is demagog, pedagogue is pedagog, prologue will forever be prolog, and programme is program.'"

"We ALL know how those rules stuck," said The Wanzor. "The grammar Nazis are all over your ass if you try it."

"But ... but ... but..." she sputtered, "What has that to do with Algebra?"

Algebra was next on the agenda of the NEA District associations meeting. A long, convoluted explanation of the NEW way algebra will be taught was presented by a teacher who happened to hate students and loved to make their lives as difficult as possible. Pink Floyd would sing about teachers like her in a few years.

"When you get right down to it ... Algebra is of no earthly use in today's world. It's a shame that people with number dyslexia are denied a degree because their brains are wired for letters and not numbers. How would you like it if mathematicians were denied degrees because they simply can not tell the difference between they are ... they're ... Their ... like the two of them own it ... and there ... it's over there? Or two, too and to? And those area the simple ones.

"Trigonometry ... that's another system altogether ... engineers use trig ... ship captains use trig ... but Algebra? Algebra is hoops."

"You really aren't her."

"Nope, but I am her great grand mother," The Wanzor said. "Close your mouth, you look like a carp out of water."

"You look like a fourteen year old girl."

"1942, Lansing, Michigan."

"You're one hundred and eighteen years old?"

"It's the damn watch ... the longer I live in the deep past the younger I look," The Wanzor confessed. "I'm going to hang out with Vee for the next few years so I can age some."

"Getting younger..." began the math instructor wistfully.