I’ve been staying at my friend Candy’s house for the past week. We all like to eat. Her husband Jesse suggested that we try the new independently owned wing place in their ghetto fabulous ‘hood called Ghot Wingz. It’s a tiny corner joint, almost behind an alley in the back of a building off of Gallatin Road in East Nashville.

The place just opened up one week before and I am quite impressed by the set-up. It’s simple and the smoked wings, offered in nine tantalizing flavors, are quite tasty! They have a community room with a couple of pool tables and an old Nintendo. The decor of giant muscle car posters, Chevy barstools and countertops constructed of old mechanic toolboxes, is, by my guess inspired by The Nashville Auto Diesel College, located directly across the street.

Sharonda Stone, the owner herself, was the one who handed me my order with a smile as she pulled back the lid of the steaming to-go box for my approval. I like it when the owners of a place are involved. I chose the buffalo style wings, which were well paired with Cajun fries and the twelve pack of beer we washed them down with at home during movie night. (Note – twelve pack of beer sold separately from Ghot Wingz’s combo.)

So . . . anyway, lots of beers later, Jesse said, “Oh, they don’t even have menus yet. I bet they need a website. I could offer to do their website and they could just pay me in wings. That’ll be $4000.00 in wings every month, please.”

“Jesse,” I shrieked. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve essentially just given yourself a $48,000.00 a year raise! This is brilliant!”

Then I got an idea.

“I’m a great big ole math dork,” I said. “How many hot wings would Ghot Wingz have to give you every single day in order to give you your raise?”

Jesse grabbed pencil and paper. I ran out of the room to get my 10-key. (Yes, I’m traveling with a 10-key . . . long story.) So there we are in Candy and Jesse’s living room doing math instead of watching films. I was laughing so hard that the tape from my 10-key unfurled all over the living room. Jesse by that time had switched to using his computer for calculations, and therefore came up with the answer in wings before I could punch nary a key on my adding machine.

The answer is – $48,000 in wings at .80 cents per wing breaks down to approximately 52 wings apiece per day for Candy and Jesse each.

That’s alotta hot wangz. You can check Jesse’s math if you want. I didn’t. I’m a math dork and all, but I try not to push it to the extreme.

I keep lots of toys on my desk at work. That’s because I work in accounting. No one really wants to come into accounting. People don’t like math. People are scared of math. Hell, I’m frightened of fractions myself. I can’t do shit without my 10-key.

Paperwork makes most people’s brains shut down. And that . . . is why I keep things on my desk like little plastic frogs, a glowing bloodshot bouncing eyeball, a book called How To Lie With Statistics, and a little bulldog that pisses water. (The bulldog is for when people turn in crappy invoices – I squeeze; he pisses on the offensive bill.) And I love, love, love to force big manly teamster-type dudes to hold my light-up Winnie The Pooh pen in their greasy fingers when I need them to sign something. Fun stuff distracts and makes folks forget their belief that math is hard.

Yesterday, a stand-in came into the office to get a time card. She needed a pen. I told her, “Use my Winnie The Pooh pen.” And she left with it. I stormed out into the production office screaming, “Hey! Stop that stand-in! She bolted with my Winnie The Pooh light-up pen! Unacceptable!” Immediately the office PA took off in hot pursuit.

I got my pen back. Shew! I’m sure glad that we didn’t have to call the cops for any Pooh larceny.