Math Problems Nineteen and Twenty: Sandwich Man at the Bridge of Death
Saint Peter points Jack in the general direction of Purgatory, handing him a special ID card to let the angels know he isn’t a darned soul trying to escape Heck. After some time, Jack comes to the Brig o’ Dread, where there is a border patrol station between Heaven and Purgatory.
Just ahead of him, Jack sees Shaggy. “Like zoinks dude, this is super dooper ungroovy!” he says “Scoobs must have put some gnarly edibles on my sandwich, because I just hallucinated that Saint Peter condemned my immortal soul to 10,000 years in purgatory!”
“Uh, Shaggy,” Jack says, “I dunno how to break it to you, but that wasn’t a hallucination! This is the afterlife!”
“Zoinks! I’m, like … dead?” Shaggy begins sobbing inconsolably. “Oh, I know how it must have happened. I’d like just got back from rehab for food addiction, and I’d lost like a bagillion pounds! They told me my stomach had shrunk to a tenth of its original size, which was exactly 40.436 cubic meters! But see, when I got home, Scobby made me a sandwich, and I thought it’d be fine to eat it because it was vegan and healthy and everything. But Scobby still made it in the portion size I used to eat, which was 26.728 cubic meters, and I like slurped it down in one bite! How many times larger than my small, puny stomach must it have been? If every 2 cubic meters of super Shaggy Sandwich contains 500 calories, how many calories did I consume?”
Jack does the math in his head, and something strikes him. “Wait, Shaggy, how in the name of God could your stomach be forty cubic meters? You’re a skinny dude.”
“People ask me that all the time. Truth is that I’m a demi-god, and my stomach’s way bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!”
“Bro, I’m on a quest from the Lord to save the world, and having a demigod with me would be really helpful! Let’s tell the border patrol agent that, and maybe he’ll let you join me! I get help and you get a get out of purgatory free card.”
The tears stop flowing down Shaggy’s face. “Groovy dude!”
They eventually reach the crossing booth, and come face to face with a crouching Russian man wearing white Adidas.
“Papers, please.” he says.
Jack hands over the card Saint Peter gave him.
“What you think this is? These are the special cards Saint Peter give out to people on special mission from God. You clearly not one of those, punk. Get better at forging documents.”
The man is just about to order Jack cast off the Brig o’ Dread and into Heck. But then his eyes lay on Shaggy.
“Oh, that you Shaggy? I you biggest fan! Everyone love you, Shaggy! Admittedly, only about third of Russians know you exist, but there about 187,000,000 people in Russia (including Ukrainians, of course), so you just do the math yourself! That a lot of people!
“Shaggy, if you believe this man is trustworthy, I trust you. You both continue on through purgatory.”