We ordered in a pizza and when it came
we talked about how we'd divvy it up.
He said that because I didn't eat as much
as him, I should have less. I said OK but
it wasn't much less than him and after all
it was me who had bought the pizza. He said
that was besides the point. This was about
eating not paying.
I said, 'Is it?'
So he said, 'How about thinking in eighths?'
I said, 'Go on, I can run with that.'
He said, 'How does five eighths and three
eighths sound to you?'
I said that I thought I was hungrier than three
eighths, and he said but 'hungrier' would be
four-eighths.
I said, 'What's wrong with that?'
And he said, 'Four eighths is the same as a half.'
I said, 'Is it?'
He said, 'Well let's talk sixteenths, how about
I have nine-sixteenths and you have seven?'
'Does that add up to the whole pizza?' I said.
'Yes, it does,' he said.
'Well then that sounds a bit more like the way
me and you eat pizza,' I said, ‘yes, you probably
eat one sixteenth more than I do.'
'Two,' he said.
'Two what?' I said.
'Two sixteenths,' he said, 'which is the same as
one eighth.’
‘Is it?' I said, 'why have you gone back to eighths?'
'Because that's how you do the divvying up,' he
said.
'Fair enough,' I said, 'so let's carve it up.'
I went over to the drawer and looked for the big
knife we use to cut up pizzas and it took me a
moment or two because it had got caught under one
of those strainer spoons you can buy in France.
When I came back, he was breaking chunks off the
pizza and eating them.
'Have you divvied it up into sixteenths?' I said.
'No,' he said, 'I was getting hungry so I've started
already.'
I looked at him.
'Great, you've got the pizza knife,' he said, 'do you
want to divvy it up into sixteenths, or shall I?'
I said, 'Hang on a mo. If you've started on it already,
doesn't that affect the way the divvying up works? I
mean…I mean…'
'No, he said, 'it's just the same.'
