Day 18: Counting Things

Humans invented math to count things. It was useful in commerce, trade, taxation and marking time (the days, the months, the years). And yet, in our own lives we rarely ever count things. How many cans are in your cupboard right now? How many books in your house? How many light bulbs are on and how many are off?


In the book Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is bored. So she counts her windows, she counts her doors, she counts everything blue. Today I was thinking about how many windows and doors I actually have. So I counted them.

For the purposes of my counting I did not count sliding doors unless they could lock. For windows, I counted every pane of glass between me and the outside world. I came up with 17 doors and 40 windows. Then, I sat Cathy down in the basement in a tent and asked her how many doors and windows we had. She counted 13 doors and 12 windows. So, it's something fun to try at home. See how well you know your own house.

My counting wasn't done. I wanted to investigate lights next. I counted all sorts of lights. LED bulbs, Florescent bars, inside lights, outside lights, lamps, salt lamps, lamps for plants, refrigerator lights, and freezer lights. I skipped anything that ran off of batteries, only things directly connected to our power bill. I got 61 lights, but I probably missed a few. Counting lights shed some light on some lights that needed to be replaced, so I replaced the dead ones. That's called productivity!

Next I wanted to count books. It seemed like an impossible task. I started with my comic/lego shelf in my living room. I am very proud of that shelf. I counted 108 graphic novels. Then I thought about the price of 108 graphic novels. At $10 - $20 per graphic novel this shelf easily held $1500 worth of books if not more. I instantly knew that I had other comic shelves in the house that held as many or more graphic novels. My stomach sunk. My brain started to spin. Suddenly counting things was not fun anymore, not fun at all.

Board Game of the Day:
Monopoly Deal

TV Watched Today:
Star Trek Short Treks Season 2

Bedroom

Kitchen

Basement

Sub-Basement