I think I finally found someone who's worse at math than me...

[BookstoreEscapee]

Showing my age, I suppose, I don't think many cashiers are trained this way any longer.

I was never trained that way, and whenever I tried to do it, it would always throw me off...

This is kinda embarrassing, but I realized, about halfway through my Junior year of College for Engineering, that I needed a calculator to do basic arithmetic.

I still use chisenbop...which I learned in first grade. Then again, Math is the reason I majored in English...

[Despina83]

You'd have to be a total ass to stand there and look at the cashier like she's an idiot, or worse, actually make a nasty comment.

I learned every thing I needed to learn to get my GED (I was homeschooled from 11 on. Sorry, mom, I know I'm not making you look good here...). I knew all the math at one point and did fine on the math test. But I just never have to use it anymore, and I've forgotten all of it. How to figure out percentages, dealing with fractions, etc.-all gone. It's scary. I really need to go back and go over this stuff again (oh what fun). I've always been a good writer. A's in english classes, and whenever I half to do papers for classes, whatever subject it may be, I always get excellent marks. And in grade school I always read at a level several grades ahead of mine. But when it comes to math and science, forget it. When I was a kid I'd sit in class staring at my math problems saying, "Huh???" while the rest of the class scribbled answers. Nothing ever sunk in.

[wynjara]

If it's due to brain farts then my brain is on a flatulence high!

I manage to have extensive amounts of 'I left my brain at college' moments. I have, and I apologize in absentia to all the cashiers I've done it to, counted out my change and then asked them to double check it. I feel bad about it, but sometimes even the number of dollar bills I'm holding slips my mind.

On the other hand, there was the time I managed to hit the 00 (double zero) button on the register twice and entered that the guy paid me $2000 for his bill. *That* was fun

[Amethyst Hunter]

Prove it. Quantify it, so we can independently rate your math suckitude. Make sure this is a rigorous proof, too. We want to make sure it passes all tests, so that nobody can argue the point

Well...in addition to exhibiting on a regular basis all the traits the original poster mentioned, I once *could not* for the life of me figure out how to change a $20 bill into $10 worth of quarters plus the leftover (doing it so that my drawer wouldn't be shorted, that is - and btw, money-switching is a tactic con people will try to get more back than they should, and I was paranoid about not going under or over so I wouldn't get in trouble), which is what the would-be customer wanted. I've done some pretty stupid things in my life, but that has to be one of the dumbest. I finally had to tell the customer to go to the service desk.

So yes: I am completely retardular at all things mathematical.