The next time someone looks down their nose at me for writing for children and sneers at how sweet and simple it must be, I want to throw at them the 1,000 word monster explainer I'm writing about logarithms.

What people think I do: "This is a GIRAFFE. GIRAFFES are VERY TALL."

What I actually do: "A so-called “natural” logarithm — written ln — is an unusual type of logarithm...."

With adults, you can just say "multiply the natural log of the dog's age by 16, then add 31."

The adults will just nod along like they know what that is even if they don't.

With kids? HAHAHA NO.

The funny dirty secret in all of this? How much adults are probably just glazing by some of these things, like methylation and logarithms and reproduction rate and aerosol (ahem), like they know what they are, when they don't.

And they're probably too embarrassed to admit it.

And we all just use them! We all just kind of assume and never define.

HEY you might say, middle school kids don't need logarithms yet, you might say!

What's increased logarithmically recently?

COVID cases.