This afternoon I had to get an inner tube for the lawnmower. The mower is old but good–it is one of Mississippi’s Yazoo Wheel mowers. After fifteen years the inner tube in one of the tires finally blew. The rear wheels are large for a mower, they are actually twenty inches in diameter and their width is two and one-eight inches.

So, I go to the store and tell them the size tube I need and what I need it for. First they have to second guess me–tires, that large, on a mower? Yes. I do know what I am doing here. So I ask and they look. First they try to show me some ten inch tires. Nope ten and twenty are both good numbers but not the same. They finally say they don’t a tube so I ask about a bicycle tube. “Oh, that might work.”

The guy looks and the comes back and tells me they do have one two and one-eight inches wide but they’ve got one about two and quarter inches wide or maybe about 2.1 inches. I say, fine, I’ll make it work. So the guy brings the box and puts it on the counter. Right on the side of the box, in great big numbers is the tube size–20 X 2.125. These people have so little math education that they do not recognize that one-eight of an inch is the same as 0.125. Guess they missed math class that day. And Kerry is wondering why jobs are being outsourced!?