According to the website Mathisfun.com(Mathis might be fun, but math is nothing but pure bitterness), the geometric definition of a line is three things.  1: It has no thickness, 2. It is straight (has no curves) and C. It extends in both directions (it has no end).  I happen to believe that some lines are those things but some are not.

This line had no end. In 2005, with a combination of lottery-like luck and the skills it takes to break into Fort Knox, the White House or the headquarters at Google, I managed to secure three vacation days off before Thanksgiving.  This 1 in a billion (or 9) chance only comes along as often as Hayley’s Comet, so I jumped at the chance of doing nothing for 9 days straight.  My plan was soon thwarted by the realization that the XBox 360 was launching that week.  I hadn’t paid much attention to it, because I wasn’t going to get one and I hadn’t planned to be home when it did.  But then I heard that people were going to buy it at the regular price and resell it on Ebay for a lot more money.  Since there are tons of suckers out there on Ebay, I hatched a plan to wait in line at Fry’s Electronics for their midnight launch that started at 7am.  I didn’t know that this was the line for people that pre-ordered it, until I sat/stood for several hours out in the cold with only my pants, sandals and warm baseball hat(I also had a shirt, I guess.  And maybe a coat. But no gloves.)  Of course, I assumed there was one extra just for me. Because you know what assuming does. (Always gets you just what you assumed.) Little did they know that I would get revenge by writing a scathing blog post about them 8 years later.

Everyone in this line is Thick. Another year later, I was given the task of going to a store called Sports Authority. My assignment was to locate the super popular, yet highly discounted razor scooter.  I was naive enough to believe that once the store opened, I would be able to waltz right inside, grab the scooter that was almost as popular as pet rocks and doing dishes, and cha cha my way to the register.  But I was told by someone much wiser than I (my wife of course) to cut a straight swath between anything that was in my way and retrieve the scooter for some random person that I didn’t know(my nephew).   I decided to go around the moving chainsaw display and boy did I pay the price for that. When I got to the scooter display, there was a boxing/wrestling/gladiator face off between two, shall we say, overeager shoppers, that made the War of 1812 seem like a war(you know just what it seemed).  While the two person mob was deciding why they would get the lamest gift in the tri-state area, I slipped out of there non confrontational Bitter Ben style and didn’t make eye contact with anyone for three days, just in case those terrifying She-Demons happened to look at me and make my face turn to dust.  Of course, it was all worth it to not hear a thing from the nephew that we gave and I quote,(myself)”the lamest gift of his life”.

The line to this place wasn’t straight(lots of curves). The worst one of all was the time the other day when I given the task of getting food for my family.  I trudged out to the horse that was running empty on grass, and rode my horse to the feeding station, and I had to wait in line for two horses to get fueled up.  The trail was filled with many obstacles like other horses dung, confusing trail posts (25 miles per day speed limit, others said 30) and some teen horse riders were trying to text on their soup cans connected with string while horse riding.  I kept hoping the sheriff would pull them over since they were “horsing impaired”, but to no avail.  I finally got to Old MacDonald’s Farm of Beef and Potato Cut Up Into String Things then Deep Fried and Salt Added but there was another line in the horse drive trough.

As you know, math isn’t fun and never will be.  And up until this post, I’ve never learned anything from it.  But today, I’ve learned that math is wrong.  Lines aren’t always straight, they are sometimes thick and they do in fact go forever.  And I also found out one more more mathematical fact.  X + Y = Bitter.

Aaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh

Bitter Line Ben

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