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As with most writer-types, my strongest skills are verbal skills. When it comes to math ability, I don't do all that horribly. I'm not one of those severely math-challenged verbal types. It's just that once I got to high school - where social life comes more to life - I wasn't always paying attention in math class. Somehow, I soaked in enough information to do well enough on the SAT's, but again, math wizardry is not my thing.

Now, when it comes to writing, I'm in my element. I'm one of those people who will write for other people for work, and when I'm not working I'll write for myself for relaxation, challenge, or creative expression. I like to think I'm reasonably skilled at stringing together just the right words, in just the right way.

While I enjoy writing on assignment, that is, of course, a different type of writing than one would do as a way of being creative. Much of what I write for others is very much a matter of business, rather than a matter of expressing my own thoughts. That's why I find ways to write for myself when I'm not working. Writing for work can be stressful and/or (shhh, don't tell the people who pay me) boring. When I write some "big, deep, thing" for myself I can find myself tired once I've completed the work. So, in order to just have a little fun, I often find something light to write.

That's what I was doing when I found a writing site that had requests for writing posted. Someone had asked how to figure out percentages. Well, non-math-wiz or not, finding percentages is something with which I am more than comfortable; so I whipped up a "how to figure out percentages" piece and posted it. Since I didn't know if the request was from a young student or an adult who missed math lessons, I tried to write in a way that would be appropriate for either.

I gave the basic rule about finding percentages and then offered a few mental math tricks to eliminate the need for the usual multiplying. (Zip, zip, zip - the article was done, and I'd found it enjoyable to write something so easy, even light, in its own way.) I don't recall if I stopped work for the day or went back to "deeper" writing, but either way I didn't expect to revisit that percentage article ever again. It turns out, however, that my percentage article had plans to revisit me - over and over and over again.

It began a few days after the piece was posted. I got e.mail comments, asking about variations of different percentage problems. I was surprised that anyone even found my percentage

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