Concept trumps details

Ian is impatiently waiting for August 6th. I didn't understand why this date was so important, but he explained: a few weeks ago, we went to the Starburst website and entered some code from a wrapper into the system as part of some silly contest, and we "won" an unidentified unit of unnamed "candy," which is to be sent to our house, in exchange for the permanent residence of our contact information in a Starburst database - I mean as a prize for winning the contest. So at that point, Ian asked me when four-to-six weeks would be, since that's how long the website indicated it would take for the candy to arrive at our house (although Ian wanted to check the mailbox almost immediately...). I looked at the calendar, and gave him a date of August 6, and then forgot about it.

But of course, Ian never forgot about it, so last night, he asked me when it would be August 6. I took this as a "teaching moment," as political commentators love to say these days, and tried to get him to figure out in how many days August 6 would be upon us, based on the fact that there are 31 days in July and yesterday was July 8. Ian thought about it, and made me very happy and by working out the following algorithm:

"It's the same thing as 31 take-away 2."

I was very excited. Then Ian perfected the moment, by blurting very excitedly:

Nineteen!!!

(July 8, 2011)