Tuesday, May 1, 2012

I hate multiplication

You know why I hate multiplication? Because it turns small numbers into big numbers. I first discovered this nefarious aspect of an apparently innocuous mathematical process when I was shopping for books on Amazon. I wanted six books. Each book cost $16. Great, I can afford these books! Except that 16 x 6 = 96 and I didn't have $96 budgeted for books. Thus I can afford all these books, but I can't afford all these books. It annoys me immensely.

What does that have to do with the garden? Nothing. Except of course those two gigantic planters I bought.

Let's see. They're four by four feet by 15" deep, so 20 cu.ft. Each. Ok, yeah, no problemo. A few bags of soil will do her. Just need to see how many I have to get.

So, 40 cu.ft. That's like, 1,133 liters.

Er... What?

You're joking, right? 4 x 4 x 1.25 x 12 x 12 x 12 x .254 x .254 x .254 x 2 =... 1,133 L

No way.

4 x 4 x 1.25 x 12 x 12 x 12 x .254 x .254 x .254 x 2 =... 1,133 L

Well.

Ok, I try to keep this blog G-rated and all that, but the only way to describe this is MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!

I mean, really. A 17 L bag of the cheap crap soil costs $2.99 + 5% tax = $3.14 (Haha, very funny.) So even considering that I might have as much as 310 L on hand in the form of existing planters, I'm looking at... $154

I kid you not. $154 of soil. Boohoohoohoohoo why didn't I think of this sooner??? I hate you, math!

The upside, of course, is that once this is done, not only I will never have to buy more planters or more soil, but I should be buying less and less plants, too, since I'm starting to plant perennials. So really, I can amortize the $154 of soil over, say, 20 years, which is a peony's life expectancy. That means I'm spending less than $8 a year on soil for the next 20 years.

Still though, $154??? Seriously? You motherfucker, multiplication. You bloody motherfucker.