The Rationality of Pie

In the spirit of celebrating Thanksgiving, I was mathematically prepared to rationalize the impossible: one carefully-measured sliver of Marie Callender’s pecan pie!  But my pie theory was disproved by family members with much better intentions than I.  My attempt looked something like this:

(16/5 − 4/239) − 1/3(16/5³ − 4/239³) + … = 3.14159… = must have pie!

As they say, retrospect vision is 20/20 and in this case, I see exactly where I went wrong.  I contemplated my decision out loud–to eat or not to eat–carefully weighing out the reasons why it made sense for me to eat pie on Thanksgiving Day.  But I didn’t act fast enough.  Essentially, I was the driver with the opportunity to safely turn left but hesitated in the midst of oncoming traffic and got stuck with a car full of backseat drivers able to point out my faltering judgment.  Ultimately, the “drivers” were correct in their assessment, making it clear that it just wasn’t worth spoiling the effort I’ve made to this point, and what better way to start the holiday season than by refusing pie!!  “Just say no, Cory!!”

So instead of pie, I had a second helping of salad.  I took it to the greens and it was the right decision, although I think that a piece of pie would have been okay by my calculations.  So I’m left without a sweet taste in my mouth but I suppose that I topped off my Thanksgiving meal the right way.  Thanks for watching my back, people!!