Hell Mathematics

by Mike Molinsky

Copyright 1992.  All rights reserved.  All wrongs avenged.
Background:

During my last year at Northeast Missouri State University, the computer bulletin board system was just starting to be used.  Among other things, there were many different boards for poetry.  On one board, a group of people had created a style of poem called a "Hasenpfeffer Meatloaf Poetry", which had to meet some simple criteria.  If I recall correctly, the criteria were:

  1. The title had to be "Hell (something)"
  2. The first line had to have something biting something else
  3. There had to be a line saying "This kind of sucks"
  4. There had to be a further line saying "This really sucks"
  5. The last line of the poem had to be "Ignore (him/her/it/them)."
And so, following a particularly vivid mathematical nightmare I had after studying for a mathematics exam, I wrote the following poem in that style.  One point you need to know to understand the penultimate line of the poem:  Dr. Bandas was in the philosophy department at NMSU, and one of my favorite professors of any subject of all time.  He used to joke with me that, as a mathematician, I would be "senile" by my mid-twenties while he, as a philosopher, would continue doing good work in his eighties.
Hell Mathematics by H.M. Loaf
A Category Theorist bites off my fingers
And places them in a bag labelled "digits".
I try to escape, but my intersection number
Is too high, and I cannot move.
I think to myself, "This kind of sucks."
My teacher appears and promises to free me.
He corrects my intersection number
By drilling holes in my forehead.
I'm still stuck, so he cuts off both my legs.
"There!" he says proudly. "Got rid of that pesky saddlepoint!"
I'm suddenly free, but lacking legs
I fall down a step function.
At the bottom, Lebesgue kicks me in the head
Until I pronounce his name correctly.
I scream, "Hey! This really sucks!"
The exit provides no escape
Because it is both open and closed.
Dr.Bandas asks me if I'm senile yet.
Ignore him.

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Last updated: August 27, 2007
michael.molinsky@maine.edu