4 + 5 = 9

Oh, the sad state of our American education system. At the second concert this weekend, I was standing in the concession line to buy a couple bottled waters. The teenager boy behind me was having trouble with addition, saying outloud to his girl "I'm going to get a jumbo hot dog at $4 and a large soda at $5. So, 4 + 5, that's about $10, right?". He'd already been getting on my nerves with his drivel, I almost turned around and said something after that. Seriously? About 10 dollars? No, its 9 dollars. Exactly. There is no 'about' to it. We are talking about whole numbers here, he has to round whole numbers? Its not like the prices were like 4.23 and 5.34 or something. There where no decimals involved. If you can't add $4 and $5 in your head, then you shouldn't be allowed to carry that much money on you. I guess, its been a couple days, and I still can't figure out what was so hard about 4 + 5 that he had to round up to 10. Oh well, he only had $11 and candy was $2, so his bad math prevented him from getting the candy bar he wanted, I guess our educational system is failing our kids, but at least its failing in a way that prevents rewarding their idiocracy with candy.