I have a love/hate relationship with numbers. I hate math and all of its formulas. Please don’t make me find out what X is! I can do enough math to balance my checkbook (mostly), follow a recipe, and count crochet stitches. That’s about it.
I had to take a calculus course when I was chasing my bachelor’s degree. Keep in mind that this was distance learning, meaning that my college was actually in Birmingham, Alabama, a place that I have never been to. The way it worked was they would send me a study guide with the required lessons, the name of the book I had to buy, and the name of my instructor.
So I am struggling through this calculus class, and it is taking me twice as long as the study guide says it should. It wasn’t pretty, but I was getting it done. Until I came to this problem about a rectangle. You know...those things that have two long sides and two short sides? So I follow the formula, which takes three pieces of notebook paper, and I get a square. You know, that thing that has four equal sides? Okay, fine. Calculus--1; Brogan--0. Even I can do that math.
Back to the notebook paper, pencil, and calculator and I get another square. Double check, triple check, redo. I fought with this freaking problem for three days and was sitting at the table bawling about it one night when Captain came home from chores and made the mistake of asking what’s wrong.
What’s wrong?! You want to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Math is stupid. Calculus is more stupid. I’m stupid. Cry, cry, swear, swear, throw the notebook across the room. Poor Captain...and then he made it worse.
He sort of chuckles and says, “A square can be a rectangle, but a rectangle can’t be a square.” What the fudge, you say? Sure enough, I looked in the glossary of the calculus book, and he was right. Damn him. Turns out Captain liked math in school and actually paid attention. Whoda thunk it?
Anyway, we’ll rewind a little bit back to my first stint in college right out of high school chasing a two-year degree in business management. Mostly I just wanted to get the heck done with college so I could get married because Captain laid down the law there would be no wedding without a college degree. He is so harsh.
One of the required course was accounting. I don’t categorize accounting as math because accounting makes sense. The inflows have to equal the outflows to make a balance sheet. It’s a puzzle, and I do love me a good puzzle. For the record, I aced accounting and all the rest of the courses, got my degree, and got the guy.
Fast forward 18 years, and we flounder into our own farming operation after Captain’s dad retired. Now there is accounting right, left, and sideways, and it is up to me to keep track of it. Crap.
Part of the deal when we got our funding from Farm Service Agency was that we have to use a certain accounting software program through Riverland College and the Farm Business Management program, and someone from that program has to come out a couple of times a year to check things over, do financial statements, blah, blah, blah. That means “the books” have to be up-to-date when the instructors calls and says he is coming. This usually catches me in a bad spot because, even though every stinking year I tell myself I am going to keep up with the books and enter the numbers every month when the bank statements come...I never do.
Why, you might ask? Let me tell you. From November 1 to March 1 in a farming operations, it’s nothing but stinking numbers. There are tax prep appointments to find out if we should prepay some accounts to offset a tax hit, year-end financial statements so the bank can decide if they are going to fund us for another year, cash flows so everyone involved knows if it was a good year or a bad year, and then there is the dreaded tax appointment in early February to have taxes filed by March 1. That’s right. Agriculture income taxes have to be filed and paid by March 1, not April 15.
By the time all of that is over, I am so sick of numbers I ignore it all until about June. Then I have to go back to January 1 and try to remember what each check was for and if it is farm-related or personal. The statements from each vendor have to balance each month. The bank statements have to balance each month. Pass the Advil, I have a headache. Or I am bawling, much like the square and rectangle episode.
It really isn’t even so much the doing, it’s the thought of having to do. There are always so many better things I can occupy myself with. However, once I get past the pain of starting, it goes fairly quickly and easily. I just need a kick in the butt to get started.
As July closes out and August is upon us, I realize that no one else is
going to kick my butt for me; I’ll have to do it myself. So on my day off on Monday, I will dig in and start. If you hear my whimpering, crying, or screaming...say a little prayer for me!
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