I still remember the day I got my first calculator

TEACHER: All right, children, welcome to fourth grade math. Everybody take a calculator out of the bin.

ME: What are these?

TEACHER: From now on we’ll be using calculators.

ME: What do these things do?

TEACHER: Simple operations, like multiplication and division.

ME: You mean this device just … does them? By itself?

TEACHER: Yes. You enter in the problem and press equal.

ME: You … you knew about this machine all along, didn’t you? This whole time, while we were going through this … this charade with the pencils and the line paper and the stupid multiplication tables! … I’m sorry for shouting … It’s just… I’m a little blown away.

TEACHER: Okay, everyone, today we’re going to go over some word problems.

ME: What the hell else do you have back there? A magical pen that writes book reports by itself? Some kind of automatic social studies worksheet that … that fills itself out? What the hell is going on?

TEACHER: If a farmer farms five acres of land a day–

ME: So that’s it, then. The past three years have been a total farce. All this time I’ve been thinking, “Well, this is pretty hard and frustrating but I guess these are useful skills to have.” Meanwhile, there was a whole bin of these things in your desk. We could have jumped straight to graphing. Unless, of course, there’s some kind of graphing calculator!

TEACHER: There is. You get one in ninth grade.

ME: Is this … Am I on TV? Is this a prank show?

TEACHER: No.