You've Got My Number

I’ve never been much good with numbers.  As a kid I suffered from a syndrome called “daydreaming to escape school.”  I suppose while the teacher was speaking in the most basic terms of 2 + 2, I was off on an adventure somewhere, swinging from limb to limb, the wild child …with vines being the only transport to my rather large house at the top of a giant Redwood.  Oh and did I mention how that tree house had all sorts of innovative features?  I honestly spent months constructing every posh detail. 

There were other escapades too.  I traveled to the old west riding on horseback, sporting a rather fashionable outfit of white faux leather as a rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl…and the way I handled a gun was legendary.  In fact, I single handedly saved the innocent on more than one occasion and out of appreciation a town was renamed after me.  You should have seen that gold plaque and the way it glistened at daybreak!

The truth is I took the time that I should have dedicated to math and instead feasted on a sugar coated imagination.  It was no surprise how I was never on good terms with my teachers or those pesky numbers.

In all honesty, if I’m really interested in something, I’m locked on to the task at hand…but unfortunately, when it came to learning what I was supposed to, my mind drifted to everywhere but.

Did you know that there are some rather abstract pictures that can be drawn by using numbers?  They can be flipped, turned, enlarged and shrunken to where they all sort of disappear within themselves.  I remember in the 7th grade using the number three in repetition to draw a mountainous landscape.  It was all quite intriguing until Sister Mary caught me and I was sent to the principal’s office.  Believe me, there was some explaining to do.

Anyway, numbers…yeah, aside from them being the ideal medium to create some pretty fantastic artwork, let’s just not and say that we did.

There have been many phone numbers to memorize throughout my lifetime…and even some that I didn't care to know were tossed in for good measure.  Since they were strategically placed in a jingle for television, blared repeatedly on the radio or flashed on a billboard, those blasted digits were burned into my mind.  In the dead of night, I’d awaken and that commercial would come to me…and then I found myself singing the phone number while fighting off the sudden urge to have my carpet replaced, to consult a psychic or to hire a lawyer.

The government only recognizes me as a number; my locker needed a sequence of numbers to let me inside.  My car has a plate on the back with yes…as you know, numbers…my address, shoe size, the serial numbers on the back of all electronics…even the darned box of cereal in the morning…but would you like to know the worst of it?  After I published my book on Amazon, there was a horrible number at the center of the page that revealed my sales and my best sellers rank in comparison to all the other books sold there!

Oh my goodness, talk about a nightmare.  It was an unforgiving sort of number that taunted me.  Every sequence that appeared carried a different voice too…“Good job,” “nice try,” “better luck the next time,” “tilt,” and of course when things were really, really bad, “what were you thinking?”

Remember how some cartoon characters were depicted with spirals swirling in their eye sockets?  Well, that describes it best.  At two in the morning, at six in the evening…that number goes up or that number goes down.  I’m in the top 100 or I’m at the bottom of the stack.  Oh Amazon, what have you done to me?  …and I’ve been agonizing over this since June wondering; “what does it mean, what does it mean?”

Okay, so this blog may seem a bit out there, but so are numbers.  We are controlled by them.  Our weight, our IQ’s, SAT scores, the speed limit, our income, our height when we are little and wish to go on a ride at the amusement park…and let’s not forget our household budget and what we may owe to the IRS.  The year we were born, 50% off, 25% more and the pressure in our tires…and the most difficult of all; our daily caloric intake when we’re on a diet.

What would life be like without them?  Imagine standing in line at the grocery store as the checkout clerk would say:  “That’ll be a pinch of gold dust please.”  Or what about when a crowd of people forms at the deli and a “please take this tag” is in hand?  A, B, C would simply not work on busy Saturday morning.  In that, I suppose a person can see the efficiency of the numerical system.

People would be forced to drive their cars with the speed determined by a windsock that dangled from the antenna.  The angle of air flow would correspond with symbols of momentum resulting in much chaos for sure.  I know I’m confused just from writing about it.  “I’m sorry for speeding officer; I lost my wind sock between Elm and Main Street.” 

Our health depends on numbers…medical tests, blood work…everything and everyone survives based on a number.  The odds of making it through a surgery, yes an average number.  I feel my blood pressure rise just from considering it.  150/95… Oh and let’s not forget to mention the number value on my pulse when I've eaten too much chocolate. 

If only it were a bit easier, if only I hadn't drifted off when I should have been paying closer attention in school.  The first time around, I eventually surrendered and learned the language of math because I had to.  Fast forward to present day…30 years or better into the future, to the “after dinner as I sit with my son at the dining room table event.”  There’s an Algebra book open to page 157 as I struggle to make sense of those horrible digits all over again. 

I see the distance in my son’s eyes and I understand “that look.”  He has traveled to a galaxy far, far, away…if only I could join him and leave all of those disheartening numbers behind.  I’d go after him too…except, I wonder how much it would cost for the return tickets back to our home planet?  I imagine the amount would probably be yet another number set higher than I would ever wish to count.