Math geeks are weird

Being married to a math geek has its advantages. He can calculate the day of the week for just about any date. He knows how many miles per gallon both our cars get because he actually tracks it. Of course there’s the big one, the super shiny actuarial career that has provided the opportunity for me to stay at home with the kids.

Naturally there are disadvantages… like come playoff time during any of the various sports seasons he follows, he will create for himself and get absorbed in various Excel spreadsheets wherein he figures the odds of each team making the playoffs, and I-don’t-know what-else. I know for a fact that actuaries often create complex Excel spreadsheets for fun; his co-worker Paul runs an Us Weekly celebrity pool, and oh-my you should see the spreadsheets this man puts together and sends out each week that tabulate the scores. Criminy. Also, since he likes the really complex math stuff, simple math is apparently boring and blase for him, because I often beat him to quick calculations in the head, and somehow early in the marriage all the bill-paying and balancing fell to me.

Then there’s just the funny consequences. Frank slept in a bit today, (and actually this reminds me he might still be sleeping, because I don’t hear him up. Better check after I’m done here!) Anyway! About 8:30 I give him an elbow and tell him it’s 8:30 and he should probably get up (I was nursing Jake in bed at the time). I have to repeat it with another elbow accompaniment to get his attention. He sits half-up and says, “830? 830 what?”

I say, “The time. It’s 8:30 a.m. What the hell else would I be talking about?”

And he says, in his sleepy haze: “I don’t know…. average minutes, maybe?”

I can’t even fathom what average minutes he thinks I’d be working on in the morning, in bed, and that would be so important as to wake him up to tell him the results.