Last week, I was facing a rather grim reality: I was out of funny quotes made by Sebastian, our now eleven-year-old who has been a Sunday fixture on this blog for nearly seven years now. There were none. Nada. Zilch. (Actually, there was one more but it honestly was not all that funny or interesting).

Then, a funny thing happened: Nathan (our 16-year-old high school junior) inadvertently picked up the slack and started being hilarious. I am not sure how long it will last past the two interactions I have, but here goes…

Me: “Nathan, how did your math quiz go?”

Nathan: “I got a 91, which was better than I thought. There were eight questions, some were worth 12 points, and some were worth six. I got the first six completely right since I am a math god, but got 5 points off #7 and 4 points off #8 since I didn’t have time to finish.”

Me: “Out of how many points?”

Nathan: “100.”

Me: “That can’t be, that doesn’t add up. Even if all questions were 12 points, that would still only be 96 points. Was each question worth 12 and a half points?”

Nathan: “No, I am certain that there were some worth 12 and some were six.”

Nathan then called one of his classmates who informed him that there were indeed eight questions, but it was out of 68 points.

Nathan: “Ha! I knew I was right!”

Me: “Um, there is no combination of 6 and 12 that will give you 68 points.”

Nathan: “Maybe she said 58 points?”

Me: “Nope.”

Nathan: “78?”

Me: “There you go, it took a while, but we have a possible answer that meets your criteria. But if you got 5 points off one, and four off another, that makes 69/78, which is not a 91.” (It’s an 88% for those playing at home.)

Nathan: “That can’t be! I know I got a 91!”

Me: “Um…”

Nathan: “I just wasn’t thinking about the math.”

Me: “What class was this again?”