Once upon a time, in the real-life world, there was a blind algebra student who was trying to do a crap load of homework after laying on the couch with a sinus infection for two days. In order to properly calculate the absolute value of x and y, this student used a graphing calculator just like those used in classrooms far and wide, except for the little synthesized robot named Betty that lived inside it and read out the numbers for people who couldn’t see what she put on the screen for them.
Betty was being quite a good little robot and was happily calculating things, (hopefully correctly), as the student wrote down equations, typed in numbers, and occasionally yelled at Siri to google mathematical terms. And then suddenly Betty was not very happy anymore, and she announced that her battery was critically low. She began to slur her words as though she were drunk and stuttered hopelessly over her words as the somewhat frazzled student tried to find her battery hatch! And then, she died completely!
Now our little story does not, in fact, end with Betty’s demise! Horrified because her calculator had died one problem away from being finished with her homework, the student rushed Betty to her Dad to see if he could find the battery compartment. Upon locating the compartment, her dad exchanged the spent batteries for new ones, and that gave Betty a bit of juice. Said student’s dad could now perform such simple math as, “2+2 = 4,” and “1+4 = 5,” but Betty did not utter a word while this was going on! If Betty could not talk, the student could not read her calculation results, and therefore no Algebra homework could be completed… But our story doesn’t end there either!
After pressing numerous buttons and making multiple google searches, the student concluded that there was no fixing Betty without a call to tech support, and therefore she would just have to attempt to do the last problem on her phone or Braille sense calculator. Dropping Betty on her desk to await the opening of the calculator company, the student set about the extremely confusing task of entering numbers and parenthesis into her phone calculator. Three steps into the lengthy equation, she was interrupted by a horrible sounding buzz coming out of Betty’s speakers! The hideous buzzing noise repeated itself about four times during the amount of time it took the student to complete her problem, and by then she was quite sick of hearing it! This time she took Betty to her mom to see if anything was on the screen of importance, and her solution was to take Betty’s batteries out completely until morning, when a call to tech support could be made. Upon the removal of her batteries, Betty insisted that her power was low, and that she was, “shutting down now!” She then proceeded to vibrate repeatedly, even though both her main and backup batteries had been removed, and technically she shouldn’t have had any power with which she could vibrate! The family then concluded that Betty had gone bananas and should be left on the kitchen table for the night! The student then returned to her room to email her Algebra teacher and say that her calculator was possessed, and therefore she couldn’t do her next assignment, and then she flopped on her bed and began to entertain her followers by writing a blog post about betty the Possessed Calculator!
Yes, that is a true story! My calculator is somehow vibrating and making hideous buzzing noises with no batteries! I’m just a lil bit creeped out…
Cheyenne Raphael Writes 