Our Magical Buffalo Is Slightly More Expensive

This is not a piece of fiction

I went shopping for buffalo in A City Far Away. Why? They have roast and steaks besides the ground buffalo that my local store carries. But it is the same chain of stores, United Supermarkets (of Texas), AND it is exactly the same outside supplier for the meat. I know.  How? I am 'The Buffalo King'. Self proclaimed, of course. I watch things and promote things, things like buffalo. Bison bison.

My eyes survey the inside of the curved cold glassed meat display. They have two kinds of roast but only one actually on display. The butcher describes them and my taste buds decide on the leaner cut. Then I notice that their price for their fresh ground is 50 cents cheaper than in My Town Far Far Away. So I mention the difference to the butcher that in My Town Far Far Away the ground buffalo is $5.99 and his store sells it for $5.49, so I ask for a pound of ground as well. I also complain that My Store Far Far Away has raised the price from $4.99 to $5.99, or ~20 percent, in a lot less than one year's time period, which seems unreasonable. At least Cooper will be happy - I'm bringing home two kinds of buffalo!

So the butcher weighs, prices and wraps both containers of meat. We have a side conversation about day-old buffalo that his store sells at a deep discount but it is always sold by noon. So I am out of luck today for cheap 'day-elderly' buffalo.

While checking out later in the Express Lane, I noticed that I had been charged the $5.99 per pound instead of the proper $5.49 and realized they overcharged me by 50 cents, just doing the simple math in my head, because it was right at a pound, 0.99 pounds exactly. I explained to the check-out clerk that my conversation with the butcher must have influenced what price he punched into the scales to create the ticket that was attached to the meat package. Then we had to repeat this explanation to the assistant manager who got involved with the refund, reweighing and punching a bunch of buttons.

But the '50 Cents Refund' is not what happened. They gave me 33 Cents. Why? Well, I had already held the Express Line too long and I didn't really want to waste any more time of the other customers just for a few more pennies, so I didn't say anything about the wrong amount. I waited until I was right at the door to examine the receipts. Then I discovered that I was only given credit for buffalo costing $5.93 a pound and charged for the correct price PER pound. So I laughed and drove to My Far Far Far Away Home.

BUT when I got home, told my doubly happy dog about the buffalo and then looked at the receipts, I started laughing so hard that I gave myself a severe headache. The two receipts had different weights for the same buffalo, with the refund receipt even having two different weights for the same exact thing! So, according to the the time stamps of the receipts, I guess the only logical explanation at this point for this event is that in the 2 minutes and 6 second time period between the events of the original purchase and the refund, The Dead Magical Buffalo grew from 0.99 to 1.02 pounds, or gained 3 percent! Then I remembered that the store manager had simply weighed the package again rather than just ring up the price and weight from the butcher's ticket. 

BUT remember there is a headache involved AND I discover later that I have missed something ELSE when I go back to proof read My Story from The Far Far Far Far Away Land. The second receipt reveals that it came from a Magical Cash Register that performs math as:

[   0.99 lb @ -$5.93/ lb  equals -$5.93   ]

... which is an incorrect calculation. If it would have calculated "properly" for the per pound entry, they could have stole another 6 cents from me. Thank you, Magical Cash Register.

I felt there was a need to do one more set of calculations before ending this story. I decided to calculate how long it would take The Dead Magical Buffalo to grow at an exponential rate to the point where there would have been no refund....and then  decided that was too boring. Instead, I decided to calculate how long it would take for The Dead Magical Buffalo to keep growing so that it weighed the same amount as the entire planet earth.

Math Project for Exponential Growth

Start with 0.99 pounds of The Dead Magical Buffalo

Grow to 1.02 pounds in 2.1 minutes

3.030303... percent growth in 2.1 minutes (2 minutes and 6 seconds)

Calculate exponential growth rate constant and confirm with a second series of discrete  step calculations with a spreadsheet.

Reaches 1 million pounds in approximately 16 hours and 13 minutes

Reaches the mass of the earth in approximately 2 days 19 hours and 48 minutes


Update 2010.03.21 20:00

Later when I was telling my tale about the buffalo growing to the mass of the earth it occurred to me that the density of the earth and buffalo should be considerably different. Because buffalo meat is about 5.5 times lighter than the average density of the earth, then a buffalo mass that equals the earth would be 5.5 times the volume of the earth.

So I started examining the sizes of the other planets of our solar system to see where Planet Bison would rank but no other planets are close enough in size to make a difference. I started wondering about other celestial objects and when the word "meteor" passed through, I suddenly thought about Planet Bison being "meatier". That was at 3:45 AM this morning and I believe that was the hardest I have ever laughed at that time of day in my entire life. Meteor, Meatier.

Twinkle Twinkle little meat ball, 

have you stopped growing at a rate ex-po-nen-ti-al? 

Like a math problem in the sky, 

if you keep growing everyone will die.

And fill the universe with magical meat,

what a tragical mathematical voluminous feat.

Twinkle Twinkle little meat ball,

if I take a bite, will that slow you down much at all?