Letters and Numbers

Jessica writes in an e-mail from MySpace, "Hi i am Jessica 35 single with no kids and never been married before,I am5"7ft 135lbs with black hair and skin with blue eyes,You seems to sound very nice and I like what you said, by the way I think you Handsome and cute also and I will like to get know more about you...I hope am not asking too much, I can see we have some difference in our age apart but I do not mind either of that. I think age is number."

Dear Jessica,
What you don't know about me is that I'm a numbers guy. I teach math in high school and I know numbers. You are absolutely correct - age is a number. But I think what you intended to say was that you are not interested in numbers if it keeps two loving, romantic and sexually active people apart.

I might agree to such a proposition if a) I believed that numbers don't mean much and b) I didn't have some numbers that have importance in my life. For example,

1 is the number of wives I currently have. I'm happy with this number and it seems to suit me and society well. Increasing or decreasing that number would be difficult at best, heart-breaking at least.

1 is the number of houses I live in. I live there with my wife. It was built about 100 years ago and is a fine house. It's got problems, but at 100 years old, we all have problems.

6 is the number of years I've been married. 2 is the number of marriages I'm on right now.

"Numbers don't matter" is said only by people who don't like numbers. But it's not true. Sometimes numbers are suddenly very important.
For example, if the doctor should say that you have only 3 months to live. See? That became important.

Pretend you're at a bar and a fight breaks out. If you're hit once in the face, that would be bad. If you're hit 20 times in the face. Ouch! Suddenly the 19 in years difference between us crazy kids becomes the difference between walking away and a visit to the hospital. Same thing with bullets. One shot from a .22 is different from a .38 or a .45. People can survive after a single shot from a twenty-two - usually not from a forty-five.

And consider the difference in lifestyle from someone making $22,000 and $45,000.

Shakespeare said it best, "To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand."