Sheltering at Home: Numbers in Our House

There are five people in this house, all of whom use computers. There are three men in this house, all of whom have important online meetings. There are four rooms in this house that have some sort of workable space for setting up a computer and using it to make calls.

One of these is E's room, which really doesn't count, as her desk is too small to be of any value to D, and too girly—and small—to be of any value to her brothers. But with a couple of floor cushions in addition to her suitably sized desk and chair, E happily spends a lot of time in there. She makes a lot of "calls," too. Recently D overheard her pretending to be someone named Kaitlyn who apparently works as a receptionist at a vet's office. There were lots of polite phone conversations, as well as some in-person nudging of clients towards better managing their pets while in the waiting room, and a few off-the-record sighs from the quite harried Kaitlyn. This is the kind of stuff that most dads miss out on when they are not under a shelter-at-home regime.

As I was saying, there are three rooms in the house that have some sort of workable computer space. P has a desk in his room—also L's old blue desk, the chief value of which currently lies in its decorative effect, and a fairly comfy chair. Turn it to face the window and add a lap desk, and it's not a bad office chair.

L has a desk in "Chip's Room" (which is technically the guest room, but which he has moved into, inch by inch, until he spawned the household saying "L is the new Chip"), and also a fairly comfy couch. The lighting and backdrop in there is such that the desk in Chip's Room makes for the most professional-looking video calls.

And then there's the living room, which harbors the dining table. Which is, of course, never actually used for dining and generally functions as an overflow platform for computing needs.

You will notice that two of these rooms offer privacy, and the other, being a high-traffic area, affords the exact opposite of privacy.

There's also the den couch, which is D's workplace of preference when he is flying solo, but this is likewise too high-traffic for business calls. So since D, as the breadwinner, wins dibs on privacy, he is continually having to oust either P or L from their rooms to the overflow option.

Mostly this works out without too much angst.

Mostly.

This afternoon, D had politely kicked L out of "Chip's Room" in order to make a couple of important work calls in there. In response, L had been making silly jokes involving logical but ridiculous statements about percentages by way of illustrating how much MORE time D was ACTUALLY going to kick him out of his space, compared to what D had originally asked for.

It happened that L and E were both sitting at the lunch table at the same time. This is not necessarily a common occurrence; in fact, L tends to try to calculate when others are likely to not be at the table, preferring to eat alone. But today he was vacating Chip's Room at a time coinciding with hunger, and so he ended up at the table with his sister.

E was apparently inspired by the mysterious idea of percentages, so her babbling brook began to head towards the sea of mathematics.

E: "One percent is 100. Two percent is 200. Three percent is 300..."

L is clearly unable to resist prodding: "So what's 100%?"

E: "10."

L (after he finishes wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes): "Ok, so then what's 45 percent?"

E thinks for a while, somehow screwing up her entire face and head, and then says, "45 hundred."

L and I exchange a glance wide of eye and raised of brow.

Me: "Otherwise known as...?"

E: "4 thousand 5 hundred."

(I confess I am mildly impressed. The hundreds of hours I have invested in her mathematical training are slowly coming to fruition.)

In a pinch there's always the option of the standing desk. But it might be in use.

Me: "So if 1 percent is 100..."

E: "Yes!"

L: "And 2 percent is 200..."

E: "...and 3 percent is 300!"

Me: "Then what's ten percent?"

E, with a look of mystified disgust: "There is no ten percent."

This is when L and I completely lose it.

E is less picky about where she uses a computer.

Some moments later we are able to congratulate each other on no longer being in imminent danger of choking on our food. Meanwhile, E has obviously put this interim to good use.

She says: "100 percent can’t be 10. It has to be greater than 10. In fact," she adds, ruminating further, "it has to be greater than 4500." 

Me: "This is true."

E: “Now I’m going to have to figure out some of my own logic.”

L has another good laugh and begins some pithy, elder-brotherly remarks in response to this, but E interrupts with, "I do not need help on this. I am a professional mathematics problem solver."

Clearly.

A month ago, the US had fewer than 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases. Now our entire country is shut down and a large percentage of the world that once took public education for granted is trying to figure out how to make homeschooling work in a shelter-at-home environment. Fortunately, our household got a pretty big head start on that one.

The next thing we did was have a math lesson on percentages.

The living room couch is ever popular with the non-computing crowd.

In fact, the living room is probably the most versatile room in the house right now.