I Certainly AM Smarter Than a Fifth Grader

So Jenn's starting to build some agility equipment in her garage workshop, and the illustrated plan for one of the jumps involves a right triangle with sides of 24 and 12 inches; she needed to calculate the length of the third side. Here's our conversation when she showed me the drawing:

Me: "Hey, an isoceles triangle!"
Jenn: "Yes, a right triangle. I need to know how long that piece is."
Me: "The hypotenuse."
Jenn: "Yes. Do you know the formula?"
Me: "Um, I think the lengths are supposed to add up to 180."
Jenn: "No, that's the angles. I need the lengths."
Me: "Oh. Well, let's draw it out and measure."
Jenn: "Um..."

That didn't go well at all, so I Googled "right triangle" and "hypotenuse" to find the formula, which is all Jenn wanted in the first place. (By the way, on the above drawing, the formula would be AB-squared equals AC-squared plus BC-squared. That made our missing length 26.83 inches. Yay for us.)

The point of all this, though, is what the hell information is being kept out of my brain because the word hypotenuse -- and its correct definition -- is still in there? When was the last time I needed to remember that? Seriously, I felt like washing my hands afterward. So, kids -- the next time you wonder when you'll need to know this stuff in real life, the answer is: when you're building agility equipment.

You're welcome.

Comments

[jac]

seriously, my head hurts after reading that. This is the woman who says 1 and 2/3rds cups is "one and a little bit" when I can only find the 1/4 cup measure.

This might be why I cannot cook Indian food.