Can Anybody Do Simple Math Anymore? (AUDIO)

The other day I was in a local mall buying some clothes and my total came to something like $48.18.  The girl behind the register was maybe 30 years old.  I handed her a $100 bill and after she scanned it to make sure if it wasn't a fake, she paused.  After about 30 seconds, panic set in as she realized her register was malfunctioning. What happened next blew my mind.  I'm convinced that nobody can do simple math anymore. It was a terribly uncomfortable moment for both of us as I could literally see her brain overheating trying to figure out what my change would be.  After a full minute, she hollered over to a colleague of hers and asked to borrow her calculator so that she'd be able to give me back proper change.  Now mind you, I'm no Mensa, but 100 minus 48.18 is not terribly difficult.  It might take me 15-20 seconds to figure it out, but I would figure the darn thing out!

It wasn't like I gave her some weird change amount to try to get an even number of bills back.  I've actually done that before. There's nothing worse than getting 98 cents back so I'll just give the nickel so that I get a  whole bill, plus a few pennies. Anyways, back to the story at hand.

After we talked about this on the air, a woman called into the show to discuss her experiences as a math teacher.  She was in full agreement that most people today can't do simple math.  When we pressed her on the air to do a simple math equation , her answer actually made matters worse as she totally butchered her own question.  What the heck is going on here?  It just doesn't add up!!