July 21, 1999
DOWN HOME: He's not so sure
he can recall the number for 911
___Numbers aren't my game. Never have been; never will be. Not in a million years, however long that is.
___Most of the time, I can paper over this little weakness. I just don't bring it up.
___Like when it comes to balancing the checkbook. I don't. That's Jo's job. I don't mean to sound chauvinistic, but God gave her the gift of numerical discernment. When we were at Hardin-Simmons, she took all those math and accounting courses while I was in the campus newspaper office, playing with words. Twenty years later, it'd be a waste of tuition for me to pick up a calculator and actually try to figure out how much month we have at the end of the money.
Marv Knox
Editor
___But a few weeks ago, I exposed just how numerically challenged I am.
___"Daddy, how old am I?" Molly asked as I walked in the door from work.
___"You're 12, Sweetheart," I responded, accurately.
___"Then why did you say I'm 13?" she asked, holding up a back issue of this paper in which I said in black and white that she's 13.
___"Uh, I was confused," I offered, lamely. "Don't take it personally. When I was 32, I spent a whole year telling people I was 33."
___"Maybe you have a problem with 2's and 3's," Molly said, sympathetically if not condescendingly.
___Maybe I just have a problem with numbers. We've got too many of them.
___Of course, old standby numbers never go away, even though they change. Like telephone numbers. Theoretically, we've had the same one since we moved back to Texas almost four years ago, but not really. Somebody changed the area code.
___Then there's the ol' address, Social Security number, anniversary, wife and kids' birthdays, driver's license, work phone number, my parent's number.
___But that's not enough. We've got a security code on the alarm system--at home and the office. The office door lock is a combination, as is the lock on the backyard gate. At last count, I had personal identification numbers for my check card plus another credit card that I couldn't remember if my dog's life depended on it. Don't forget my voice mail password, not to mention my cell phone number and the password for voice mail on that phone.
___Thank God I don't have a beeper.
___The other day, our family joined several thousand of our closest neighbors at a water park. I was stunned at how tattooed America has become. I've never wanted a tattoo, but I've thought seriously about engraving that pesky credit card PIN number on the inside of my right ankle.
___When "the roll is called up yonder," I'm going to be glad the Lord calls me by my name and not my Social Security number.
___
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