Friday, December 21, 2007

the eleventh visit will involve throwing away 1024 pieces of toast

"You should get over your reluctance to waste food. It's placing a restriction on your life."

"You're probably right."

"So, the first thing that needs to happen is you need to watch me throw away this piece of toast."

"Oh my God! [pause] Okay."

(Piece of toast is taken across the room and thrown into garbage can.)

"[shaky breath] That went all right."

"Good. So how is this going to work? Every time you come over, you'll watch me throw away more and more food?"

9 comments:

ArC said...

Why does it have to be exponential?

(And if it does, why didn't whoever -- but I'm gonna guess your brother cause why not -- start with a grain of rice?)

ArC said...

On further thought*, while I could buy that your reluctance to waste food has gone too far, I'm not sure I understand why that piece of toast was holding you back. Was it stale? Moldy? Just not delicious? Too much food?

* aka my own neurotic frugality

N said...

The toast was fine. I just wasn't hungry any more. We could've put it back in the freezer, but the point of the exercise was to get comfortable with wasting food. And I also feel a lot about nagging guilt even about the idea of becoming okay with wasting food.

ArC said...

OK, carry on, then.

(One could consider that overeating (or eating when you're no longer hungry) is itself wasteful.)

Seshagiri said...

Shouldn't it be 2048 pieces of toast?

N said...

No, because it started with a single piece of toast!

# of toast discarded on day N = 2 ^ (N-1)

Random Stuff said...

yeah, I basically started laughing uncontrollably when I realized what the 1024 was for... complete math nerd.

Anonymous said...

I really hope you stop being an accessory to food throwaways and that you go back to not wasting food.

Anonymous said...

If the trash can has eight bits, you might end up eating 3 pieces of toast on the 11th visit.