NOT LIKING THE ODDS

Oh! That’s better. We’re back to an even number of posts again. That’s a relief. I always have a slight nagging sense of discomfort when we’re stuck on an odd number and really feel a need to post again just to get us back on an “even” keel. Equally, I can find myself holding back from posting the next one as it starts the whole cycle off again.

Odd? Moi? Not a bit of it… (…and don’t call me “odd” – I told you, I don’t like things when they’re “odd”.)

I’ve always been slightly suspicious of odd numbers. They take me out of my comfort zone and leave me troubled. I’ve never really known why. Perhaps it’s an aesthetic thing, perhaps I just like things nicely balanced, or maybe I’m just greedy and I’d rather have two biscuits with my coffee instead of just the one. Then again I also prefer 4 wheels on my car to 3, and 2 wheels on my cycle to 1.

Where did this come from? I’m not really sure. I do remember being eight years old and deciding that eight was going to be my “lucky” number, not that I’ve ever found anything remotely lucky ever came from having made that decision, and in the great history of my life, being eight doesn’t actually sit there up amongst the greatest of my years.

Come to think of it, I can’t think of any single year that rises above the mean, they’ve all been rather unspectacularly similar. Rather perversely, the following year, nine, was designated my “unlucky” number and I don’t think that being nine was a particularly terrible time for me either. No more than any other year anyway.

It did, however, set the template of “odd = bad, even = good” which has become rather engrained in my patterns of behaviour ever since. Whilst New Year’s Eve has always felt like a bit of an ordeal to negotiate my way through each year, the prospect of moving into 2010 for example was much more pleasant than it already seems to be for the year 2011 as it hoves into view. Again, though, there’s no real evidence that my life fares any better in the “even” years, in fact historically you could probably put up a fairly good case for the opposite point of view, but there’s always that “inkling” lurking about as the dates tick away, a slight sense of discomfort and melancholy that refuses to slink off.

November can never be a “happy” month and yet April, despite a reputation for “cruelty” will always find me slightly more relaxed than March ever could. Weekdays live in a kind of quantum state really. Is Monday the first day of the week, or the second? Saturday always seems to be day seven, although, Sunday as the proverbial “day of rest” should come last rather than first as on my calendar. I guess that with the actual days of the week, it’s probably best to assume they’re all likely to get a bit “hinky” and assume every day is likely to get a bit odd.

Of course the numbering of days of the week or months of the year are just human constructs after all, based on the natural rhythms of the planets and the seasons. We could just as easily decided to have 24 months or 6, and 8 days a week (as the Beatles might have preferred). It’s a little bit interesting that all our time divisions are even numbers (12 months, 24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds) so maybe we’re all just programmed to prefer them (but then there’s that annoying little “7 days a week, 365 days to a year” thing that just won’t go away. No wonder most of my days seem pretty strange).

Food “rules” have been known to be fairly strictly adhered to, despite any obvious insanity that might reveal, and the obvious unbeneficial outcome for my waistline. “Minstrels” must always be consumed in eights, Biscuits in twos, although the perfect “just right” quantity of Digestives is most definitely four. Full slices of toast should always be eaten corners first (saving the best ’til last…). I’ve mellowed towards the salted peanut recently, in the sense that I will just grab a handful nowadays, although I still prefer to eat the whole ones first before moving on to the already halved ones. (None of these are strictly true of course, most of them are just “preferences”. Do you think I want you to think I’m weird or something?)

When I was younger, coloured sweeties like “Skittles” or “Smarties” used to be preferably consumed in pairs by colour, and it’s rather interesting how often in a packet they were divisible by eight, although any leftover odd numbers in the bowl would still eventually be (not that reluctantly) eaten, it always left me feeling slightly uncomfortable for the rest of the day. I have even been known in my madness to “carry” the stats over to the next packet, but that was very rare.

Thankfully, these days, such lunacy is less obvious because the tingling left in my teeth from eating such wicked things finally warned me that I needed to grow up and stop eating the kiddy sweets, not least because age-onset diabetes isn’t exactly a faraway prospect if I continue to do so. It was also always slightly awkward if anyone was handing round the biscuits or the cakes at a social function or at work, as I had a quiet need to try and go back and snaffle the second one at some point so that the rest of the day didn’t feel ever-so-slightly “off-kilter” or “out-of-whack” that would sit at the back of my mind, nagging at me as the day wore on.

So I suppose I will have to admit there is a definite ‘oddness’ in my preference for the even, but it’s not the hardest and fastest of rules, and I’m always quick to break it. I mean I don’t count my footsteps or have to close the door twice whenever I leave the house or anything like that, but I think odd numbers will always leave my feeling just the tiniest bit uncomfortable and on edge.

Word count: 1045. Damn it! 1048, that’s better… Oh…

This could go on all day…