Each and every year (well, except for last year), the first weekend in December finds the Math Department heading down to the Asilomar Conference Center on the Monterey Peninsula to attend the Northern California Mathematics Teachers' Conference. Tradition has it that we drive down Friday after school check in to the same motel and then have a wonderfully festive and expensive dinner on the Department's dime. After dinner we generally gather to play a game (Pictionary or Settlers) and then hit bed to get an early start to the day on Saturday.
Over the course of many years, my snoring has been foisted on any new male department member by making him my roommate. This year, I was to get my own room sparing every male the painful experience of my nocturnal sounds. Except this week a wrench was thrown into the works. One of my colleagues companion (this is a story in and of itself but since it's my blog and his story I can't tell it) will be joining us and so he is getting the single and I am going to have to share a room.
So what is the Math Department way to equitably decide who has to room with me? I posted on the whiteboard in the department room, a challenging extra credit problem I gave to my Honors Geometry classes that I didn't know how to do. Last person to solve it is my roommate. There was frantic scribbling all after lunch.
On an ironic note, the first person to give me the correct answer (I have the answer book but not the solutions manual) was a senior girl who was given the problem by another senior. She figured it out during her last period Neurobiology class.