Simple math...or is it?

12 divided by 3 equals 3 because I said so! Today while deciding which length of shelving we should buy at Home Depot I came up with the conclusion that we should buy a 12 foot piece and then we'd be able to cut it into 3 foot lengths and get 3 pieces. Peter's idea was to buy two 6 foot pieces and cut them in half so we could make 4-3 foot long shelves. However, the 12 foot long piece was cheaper so I convinced him to get the longer piece and had somehow come to the conclusion that we would only have three shelves instead of four. Now the funny thing was I knew that 12 divided by 3 equaled 4, but for some reason I was thinking of four foot long pieces and I only wanted three foot long pieces. So if I took 12 divided by 3 I would get 3 with some left over. Peter bought my idea and went with it. We laid the shelving stuff on the floor, measured out three feet and cut it. Then we measured another three feet and realized that our third piece would be really long. At which point Peter starts laughing and tells me that 9 divided by 3 equaled 3. Sad part was I couldn't figure out why he was coming up with 9 when we had 12 feet. Shortly thereafter I clued in. So just to let you all know 12 divided by 3 equals 3 with a remainder of 3 so you really get four shelves. :)

Now trust me as a teacher, I do know how to do math...I was really good at it when I was in school. Plus Peter the engineer took awhile to figure it out too. :)