Sunday, January 23, 2011

1+1=3: A One Act Play

Characters: Stuart, Natalia, a waitress, 2 cooks and approximately 20 patrons.
Scene: A Cambridge diner on a wintery Saturday morning.  The scene opens with Stuart and Natalia having just placed their brunch orders with the waitress.  They have been discussing the past week, when the conversation turns to Natalia's stair climb.

S:  So how is your training going?
N:  OK, I think.  I did 3 climbs this week, and managed to chop off 5 minutes during the last climb.
S:  That was Thursday right?
N:  Yes.  I did 1600 stairs in 60 minutes.  I still don't know what the exact time might be on the day, but I don't agree with your estimate of 40 minutes for the Empire State thingy.  It sounds slow.
S:  Why don't you use a stopwatch on each run up?
N:  I don't have one?
S:  So your Garmin does not have that feature?
N:  No, and anyway, as I told you before, the Garmin is useless.
S:  Hmmm, I find that hard to believe....have you read the manual?
N:  Look, let's not get off the subject, I don't want to talk about the Garmin.  I am slightly concerned about how slow I am on the stairs.  I don't want to finish last.
S:  How many stairs do you do in a session?
N:  I just told you - 1600.
S:  How many floors are there in our building?
N:  Twenty.
S:  And how many flights of stairs?
N:  (with a deep sigh) 20.  I do 200 stairs in one run up.  So I do 8 run ups, for a total of 1600 stairs.
S:  How many stairs are there in a flight?
N:  God, this is hard.  How many times have I told you this? 20!
S:  So you are doing 20x20? That means you do 400 stairs in 1 run up.
N:  Impossible!  
S:  Thickie, if you have 20 stairs on one flight and you do 20 flights, what would that work out to?
N:  (with dawning revelation) OMG!  So that means....
S:  ...that you have been doing 3200 stairs in an hour.
N:  OMG.....Me?!  I have been doing that without knowing!  Oh wow, this is amazing......
S:  Perhaps you should think more about simple maths, rather than Fibonacci!
N:  I am in shock.............3200 stairs...that means.........

The End.

6 comments:

  1. OMG! I'm laughing with tears rolling. This is like me and Hubby talking about something. I can just see the back and forth. I'm glad you now know just how much you've been doing. I bet you feel really great about what you've been accomplishing.

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  2. Could have been a conversation we had, I'm not good in maths and the hub is.

    Funny!

    You are so going to rock those stairs!

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  3. I loved this, girl. You crack me up - I suck at math, too!

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  4. Grande discussione...ma come al solito si finisce sempre a parlare del Garmin e le sue potenzialità.
    Sono sicuro che farai una grande gara.

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  5. Best dialogue EVER in a one act play!

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  6. Good Luck tomorrow!! I am slightly envious that you are running it, but it is awesome that you have raised all that money! I better get to work raising money so I can run it next year :D

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