The real question is should I tell them?

I was taking the bus to work today and we pass a sign in front of a bar that says, "Beer is cheaper than gas! Don't Drive, Drink!" The sign then advertised some beer at $2.00 a bottle.


No it's not...and you just proved yourself wrong on the same sign.

I know the sign is just a clever advertisement, but I just can't let it go. I know the sign is wrong but now I need to figure out how wrong the sign is.

I then begin making the calculations in my head to figure out how expensive a gallon of that beer would be, assuming it's being sold in a 12 oz. bottle.

For the record it's $21.33, which is way more expensive than a gallon of gas. How much more? We'll get to that.

I also have to mention at this point that this went on in my head, on the bus, while I got to work.

I also had no control over whether or not I made these calculations, my brain was doing this whether I liked it or not.

It's not over yet. Later on, while sitting in this very chair I remembered my time on the bus and I felt compelled to look up the average price of a gallon of gas in Albany and figure out how much it would be for 12 oz. of it.

Albany's gas is currently $2.801* a gallon, making it .26** cents for 12 oz of it.

This part and the next part I have some control over, because I needed a calculator and a website to make these calculations. However, I didn't have much of a choice because I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it until my curiosity was satisfied.

Then by idle curiosity I thought why not just figure out how much more expensive beer was.

Beer is more than 8 times more expensive than gas. Not only was that sign wrong, but it was ridiculously wrong.

I compulsively do this kind of thing in my head all the time and I'm not sure what that means.

By the way, the math changes if you choose to drink at home depending on the beer you're drinking, but either way the sign is wrong.

I'm like a poor man's xkcd.

*Gas prices supplied by http://www.albanygasprices.com/


**Some figures were rounded.