Finding the Answer to a Missing Value Multiplication Problem is just…

While standing in the customer service line waiting to return a few baby related items at the Midway Target last night a young lady walked up to the counter and asked, “Do you have a calculator?” I, being the snoop that I am, thought that was a slightly curious question.

One of the two customer service workers replied, “I think we do.” After looking around for a minute or two with no luck I decided to offer the services of my mathematical training or cellphone.

I asked, “Do you need to take the calculator or do you just need to calculate something quick?”

She replied, “I need to figure out how many times 64 cents goes into $15.86!”

Not having that finely tuned mathematical skills, I pulled out my cellphone and confirmed the values she had stated, not wanting to give her the wrong answer. I could have just kept adding 64 cents up until I got close to $15.86, but being the mathematical machine that I am I dropped some knowledge on this fine specimen of the opposite sex and divided 15.86 by .64 to get 24.78125. I replied, “24 will get you as close as you can get without out going over.” She thanked me and went on her way.

So we have:

Finding the answer to the missing value multiplication problem
.64 * x = 15.68
is just a sneaky way of stating the division problem.
15.68 / .64 = x

To be fair she seemed to not be all there and whoever she was with at Target was using an electric cart and we all know what that means… well, actually no we don’t. At least she had the sense and knowledge to seek out help to get her question answered.

I do wish I would have asked her why she needed the answer. I can only assume that there was something she really liked that cost 64 cents and she had $15.86 saved up. Hopefully it was a non-taxable item or she had taken the tax into account in the 64 cent price. We may never know.