I Was Told There Would Be No Math

“What's that?” asks a woman who hadn't been in the store for a while. She points at the thing which rests atop Fernando's sodey pop fridge.

“That is the Adopt-a-Movie Box. Anything in there's up for sale, four bucks a pop, or two each if you've already got eight bucks in purchases.”

She rifles through it. “What do you mean?”

“If you purchase eight dollars in stuff, then anything that you would select from that box would be only two dollars rather than four.”

“What if I buy eight dollars from this box?”

“Then you will have bought eight dollars in stuff, and any further purchases from that box would come to two bucks apiece.”

“But I spent eight dollars, so they'd only be two each.”

“Then you would only have spent four dollars, making them once again four bucks apiece, bringing the total to eight.”

She shakes her head. “That's too confusing.”

In all fairness, the conversation left Fernando befuddled, too.