Bloggin' Umholtz

The Numbers Game

         There seems to be a fascination with numbers lately. Ford has a car called the Five Hundred. Five Hundred what? There’s a movie in the theatres titled 300 and wasn’t there another one just recently dealing with 46 or 43 or 23 or some such supposedly significant number? There’s a TV show that uses a mathematician to solve crimes and of course there’s always the good old 666. Wow, even feels weird to type that.

         I have my own number problem, if you will. And in some fashion it actually appears to relate to 666. Right now, those of you that know me are going, “I knew it. I knew it. I always said he was the devil in disguise.” Let me put your minds at rest. Devil? No (Pay no attention to the horns). Devilish? Yes.

         My number problem has been ongoing since high school. Maybe even longer than that, but it was in high school where the technology was developed to actually allow me to begin to realize I had a problem. My number problem is time related. What’s more, it is time related to the first six hours of the day on a 24 hr clock or the first and third 6 hr increments on a 12 hr clock. Confused? Me too. It’s not the Einsteinian, theory of relativity, bending time type thing and not the “shoot I missed my appointment with destiny” type thing.

         High school was when I received my first digital type clock. In those days they didn’t have fancy LED readouts. It was a wheel of numbers type thing, sort of a cross between a slot machine and your local Little League scoreboard. Every minute a new number would flop down into place. This technology made my problem all to evident to me. It seems I have this uncanny ability to pick the precise moment (minute) to read time when the digits are all the same. At night, when I wake up and glance at the clock it invariably reads 1:11 or 4:44 or 2:22 or some such combination. The same thing holds true when I glance at the computer clock at work in the afternoon. Very, very seldom do I glance at a clock during those two time periods when I don’t get that combination. If I do, I’m usually only one minute late or early. (Luckily I can’t get 666)

         If I consciously think about it and then look at the clock, it doesn’t work. It also appears to have no correlation to the Lottery. Trust me, I tried. So what does it mean? What internal infernal clock mechanism causes me to read time at those precise moments? Is there some inner voice trying to tell me something? Is there a code? 1:11 means I should stay home from work the next day? 2:22 means I should sell my stock before the market crashes? Should I seek therapy? Should I consult an Oracle?

         Maybe these clock readings are all part of one all consuming time-connected code, sort of the time equivalent to DNA, and these are the more obvious segments. Should I become a hermit in a cave offering up prophecy based on my numeric readings of digital clocks? I have the gray beard. A staff and flowing robe should make the ensemble complete. Each day at 3:33 (And by the way my scout troop number was 333) I could issue forth from mmy darkened cave, surrounded by swirls of fragrant incense and issue forth such proclamations as, “always remember, no matter where you go…there you are.” I could be the walking equivalent to a Salada Tea Bag. There would be ooooh’s and ahhhhh’s. Scholars would studiously write down every word. I would turn and shuffle back into the cave and listen to the sounds of offerings plunking down into my fountain. (Every Prognosticator needs a fountain.) Life would be good.

         Or maybe it’s just some little 666 having fun at my expense and I think too much. .