To the Nth Degree

I got someone really angry the other day.

It reminded me of when I once got my mom so angry she said, "And everyone around here is leaving stuff around to the Nth degree!" She used to say "to the Nth degree" a lot, mostly when she was angry. For a long time I wondered what the heck to the Nth degree meant - I was too young to understand exponents and when you're being yelled at you're not likely to come to higher maths on your own. When I was a teenager I realized that crimes often are in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree, so she was probably referencing those. People were criminally leaving their stuff out. I think she went with "Nth" because when you're angry, the last thing you want is for someone to correct you on "Well in this case it would really be the 2nd degree, because... ." So she hedged with "Nth." But to me it always just sounded very weird, and had the opposite of the intended effect. I would stop to consider what it might mean each time - does she mean it's hot out? Is this a college related problem? Then I'd realize she was still yelling at me, and I had probably missed several important points.

Later on in life I gave it more thought and came to the conclusions I've just told you here, and realized that one crime that can be to the Nth degree is murder. Perhaps this was her way of signaling she was considering murder. I took her more seriously after that.

I had this thought while the person I mentioned at the beginning of this story was yelling at me. I probably missed several important points.