A Farting Tale – Don explains the world - #1

There once was a country called Mathmatica. The land was vast with many regions and many problems. In Mathmatica, the country’s problems were always represented by mathematical equations. The people then would select one mathematician whose job was to solve all the equations and make life better.

Life had been good in Mathmatica, but over time there were problems that the elected mathematicians were either unable or unwilling to solve. Unfortunately, if a problem was not solved now, it became much more complex the longer it persisted, and thus much harder to solve by future mathematicians.

The people of Mathmatica were getting annoyed and frustrated by the enormity of their problems and by the mathematician’s inability to solve them. A series of elected mathematicians had failed to find the answers and merely left the equations for the next guy to solve. While the problems could have initially been solved using algebra, now complex calculus was clearly needed. The current mathematician didn’t even make an effort on some of the equations, claiming they were too difficult to solve.

But it was time for the people to select a new mathematician. Many of the most respected mathematicians claimed they were the best choice but none of them gave many details on how they would go about solving the tough equations plaguing the country.

And then, to everyone’s surprise, Mr. Card spoke up, “I can solve every one of those equations,” he boasted. The established mathematicians and their followers derided him and called him a crazy fool. “Why you’re not even a mathematician!” they howled. “How are you ever going to solve the simple equations, let alone the most complex ones?”

It was true; Mr. Card was not a mathematician. He had never done any math; in fact, he was terrible at doing math. Yet, he insisted he alone could solve the problems. However, the math establishment completely disregarded him. “Does he think he can just wave a magic wand, and the answer appears?” jeered the current head mathematician.

However, many people were so discouraged and disgusted with the current situation, unbelievably, they selected Mr. Card as the new problem solver- in-chief.  The establishment mathematicians were stunned and enraged that the people had selected an amateur instead of one of them.

That didn’t bother Mr. Card. He confidently grabbed the chalk, marched up to the blackboard, and worked at solving the complex problems in Mathmatica . And incredibly, he began to have some success, which gave the people great hope. However, the established mathematicians harshly criticized how Mr. Card was going about solving the equations. “You can’t do it that way! It’s not mathematically correct,” they shouted. Mr. Card smugly replied, “I think I just did.”

Now life in the country would have been wonderful, except for one bizarre factor. When Mr. Card was at the board solving problems, he farted, and farted a lot. His critics began to complain loudly about the farts. Unfortunately, once Mr. Card realized this irritated his detractors, he began to fart with more frequency and intensity.

Mr. Card’s supporters attempted to defend his farting. “He needs to fart to solve the equations,” they claimed. Others said, “He just farts because that’s who he is. You just have to accept the farts as part of the process.”

But the farts kept coming until he was unleashing some of the most horrendous, hellacious expulsions that the people had ever smelled. Many people became sick, and some even fainted at the toxicity of Mr. Card's eruptions.

But his supporters learned to become impervious to the awful odor, or held their noses. And Mr. Card continued to work on solving the country’s most complex
problems.

But the turmoil caused by his frequent crepitation greatly divided the people. The people who focused on the farting and ignored the progress being made, viewed Mr. Card as an obnoxious, toxic force and demanded he be replaced. However, the people who ignored all the farting and looked only at the results, believed Mr. Card might be the most extraordinary person ever to have held the chalk at the blackboard.

Everything could have been fine if Mr. Card would have just stopped farting. But he loved to fart and didn’t care how noxious his emissions were. He loved bending over and unleashing atrocious missives at all his enemies. He even found a way to fart digitally, meaning his farts could be smelled across the country at all hours of the night.

It then was time to decide if Mr. Card would remain at the blackboard or if a new person would be assigned the chalk. The place smelled so awful due to Mr. Card’s farts that the people choose a new mathematician to stand at the blackboard. He was an old mathematician and could hardly hold the chalk. Most people conceded that the new guy had little chance of solving the country’s most difficult equations, but they were confident he would not fart, and if he ever did, it would smell wonderful.

So, the new guy’s team went in and fumigated the entire place because it smelled so bad after Mr. Card’s years of nasty farts. But then they erased his work on the blackboard …..