Socks and Tupperware lids, they used to drive me crazy. But don’t worry. I fixed that!
One day it just came to me; henceforth I will wear nothing but white athletic socks! No, I don’t mean I will wear nothing but white athletic socks (sorry ladies). That would be illegal. I mean, I will wear other clothes with them, but the only socks I wear will be white athletic socks. I will wear them to the supermarket, to Friday night fish fry, to funerals, when I go to church at Christmas, just all the time and for every occasion. Why will I be wearing only white athletic socks? Well, it’s not because I am an athlete, that’s for sure. And it’s not because it’s cool, although they do look good when I wear them with sandals. (Not everyone agrees.) I will do that because no matter how hard I try, I absolutely cannot ever pair up my socks after I do my laundry. Life is hard. We have to find ways to cope. What did I do? I went out and bought 10 pairs of identical brown socks and 10 pairs of identical black socks. I threw away all of my other socks. Brilliant, huh? My theory obviously was that having only two different types of socks, and lots of pairs of each, it would be easy to pair them up. Guess what? The next time I pulled my laundry from the dryer I had four red socks, three green socks, and one blue one. How exactly did that happen! And who the Sam Heck is going to wear red socks? I couldn’t pair them up anyway because all the red ones were for the left foot. Same with the green, except they were all for the right foot. Holy crap! How’s a guy supposed to win at this laundry game! Once again, I threw away all my socks and promptly bought 30 pairs of white athletic socks, all identical. And just to be sure, I never wash them. Ever. I have always considered myself a problem solver.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned; a brilliant solution to one problem can often be applied to another problem. This is done through a process called reduction. Allow me to elucidate:
“In computability theory and computational complexity theory, a reduction is an algorithm for transforming one problem into another problem. We write A ≤m B, usually with a subscript on the ≤ to indicate the type of reduction being used (m : mapping reduction, p : polynomial reduction). The mathematical structure generated on a set of problems by the reductions of a particular type generally forms a preorder, whose equivalence classes may be used to define degrees of unsolvability and complexity classes.”
Got that? Okay, so I copped all that from Wikipedia. But what I’m trying to say is that I, all on my own, developed an equivalence of classes which allowed me to use computability and computational complexity theories and resulting reduction by mapping the mathematical solution to unpaired socks (buying all white ones) to that other great mystery of life. Which is, how in the name of sweet holy Jesus do you ever, ever find the correct Tupperware lid to cover your leftover pizza! Do you know how many different sized Tupperware lids there are in that #@$%#$@’ing lid drawer? Holy sh!tsky. It drives me absolutely insane!
So there I was, bagging up all the Tupperware containers and lids in the kitchen, getting ready to take them out to recycling, when uh-oh, the wife walked in. “And what, exactly, do you think you’re doing?” she wanted to know. Lamentably, even after my brilliant and lengthy postulation of reduction theory, she did not see the equivalence of classes between socks and Tupperware lids. Well you know, they did tell us in high school that girls just aren’t that good at math. So now I need to figure out what to do with 40 new sets of Tupperware I bought at the Walmart yesterday, all the same size. And I need to find the Baggies, so I have someplace to put my leftover pizza.
Frustrated by the stymification of the application of obvious solution to the Tupperware lid problem, I turned my brilliance to other challenges. Why is it that when I want a round-necked T-shirt I can only find V-neck? How do I keep the beer cold when the electricity goes out? How do I remember my Mother’s birthday so I don’t have to ask her every year? Why can’t I figure out a gift that my wife will actually like? (I thought that vacuum cleaner was nice.) How do I keep the #@%#$$’ing woodpeckers from pecking holes in the side of my house, and then the squirrels from moving in immediately thereafter?
Ah-ha! There is a problem I could solve. The woodpeckers are pecking holes in the wood siding of my house and the squirrels are moving in. Those two problems constitute a preordered equivalence of classes if I ever saw one. The solution to both problems is…a shotgun. The next time I saw that squirrel running across my lawn I let go a blast with my old Sears twenty gauge. He’s a quick little bugger though. I missed. But just then that Woody Woodpecker landed on the side of my house and started pecking away. I quickly reloaded, swung on him, and bam! Calm yourselves, all you bird-loving readers out there. There is no need to fear.
True story: I used to load that old firearm with slugs and take it deer hunting. Once upon-a-time I got 17 shots at 15 different deer in a single day, and I missed them all.
Needless to say, that woodpecker was gone by the time I pulled the trigger. I just blasted a hole in my siding a foot in diameter, and another squirrel promptly moved in.
Despite that temporary setback, I will press on, because as you can plainly see, I can cope. I am a coper. I just put my head down, shut down any bad vibes, and push on through whatever problem it is until I burst out into the light again. And you do that by always keeping in mind that no matter how dark it is, the passage of time will ultimately lead you back to the light. That is the only way to make it through life.
But if anybody has any ideas on getting those #%^@&’ing squirrels out of the walls of my house, I’m all ears.