Too Many Zeros
(The following is a conversation that Chris G. and I had while in Atlanta. It’s not exactly the same as we had it, but going from memory, I’d say it’s relatively accurate. I color coded the dialogue so it’s easier to keep track of. I’m crimson, G is lime green, and Tiffany is teal.)
I sat across from Chris outside of the corner bakery. He was sipping on a mango lemonade frozen thing, while I was nursing my overpriced cup of coffee. One thing that will most likely remain constant throughout my life is my bitching at how expensive good coffee is, yet always dropping the cash down for a cup while doing so.
“I still think that shit’s ridiculous.” I complained to Chris, my hand sliding into my pocket to rub my ticket to the aquarium.
“What is?” He responded, the straw from his drink resting on the corner of his lips.
“I paid twenty six bucks for this ticket. This had better be the most hardcore aquarium on the planet.”
“I told you it was pretty cool.”
“They must be making a fucking killing off ticket sales.”
“Of course they are.” Chris stabbed his straw into his frozen thing a few times, before resting it back between his lips and taking a sip from it. “Serious turnaround I’m sure.”
“I can’t imagine the number of tickets they sell in a day.”
“That parking garage holds about sixteen thousand cars, right? Well, let’s just say that, hypothetically, that garage fills up with people who buy tickets to the aquarium twice a day. It’s probably more than that, but hypothetically.”
“Right.” I responded, swirling the remnants of what was in my coffee cup around the bottom of the cup.
“Right, so at twenty six bucks a ticket, at … two times sixteen thousand…” Chris murmured as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone to use the calculator. “So, twenty six times thirty two thousand… that’s like eight hundred and thirty two thousand dollars a day, assuming that garage fills up twice a day, when it’s probably more than that.”
“I’d like to make eight hundred thousand some odd dollars in a day.”
“Fuck yeah. That place probably cost like a good hundred million or more to build. And that might even be too low a figure.”
“They’ve probably already made it back in the time they’ve been open. Considering the ticket prices haven’t fluctuated much.” I absently said, glancing at the pigeons circling our table.
“Well, let’s see here then. Five hundred million, divided by thirty two thousand… they could make that in about a thousand and five hundred days. So, they’ve already more than broken even.” Chris laughed as he thumbed at his phone.
“Wait… what?” I was a bit confused at that figure, pulling out my own cellphone to see what I got. “When I try to type in five hundred million, my phone tells me ‘out of range’, yours didn’t do that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as I showed him my phone.
Chris glanced at my phone and then shook his head. “No, mine lets me enter it no problem.”
“How many zeros are you typing in?”
“I dunno… uhhh… like seven.”
I counted off in my head for a moment, “That’s only fifty million, dude.”
“What? Are you sure? Five hundred million has seven zeros.”
“Look…” I raised my hand, opening it and counting off my fingers, “Go in sets of threes, you put the five up front, then two zeros after it, then three more zeros, then three more zeros after that. That’s two sets of three, which is six, then two more. Eight zeros. Seven zeros is fifty million.”
Chris looked a bit more confused at this, and during out little debate, Tiffany had showed up and sat down between the two of us.
“Fifty million? That’s uh… seven zeros.” Tiffany said as she sat down, obviously overhearing some of our bantering.
“Yeah, like I said. You were punching in fifty million, dude.” I grinned at him, chuckling a bit.
“I guess it was only fifty million. God damnit, too many fucking zeros.” Chris said, laughing a little bit himself as he shut his phone and pocketed it again.
“No bullshit. I hate math. Five hundred million isn’t even really that high of a number in mathematical terms either.” I agreed, sliding my phone back into my pocket as well, turning to look over at Tiffany. “Get your book signed?”
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