Round Numbers

This is post 100. I know that because Blogger Dashboard counts them for me. I had 99 posts prior to this one. So it is number 100. A milestone.

Why are we enthralled with round numbers? Is turning ten any more momentous than nine or eleven? Why? Was writing 99 essays that small of a feat as to be not worth mentioning, but the 100th essay is something special?

Anniversaries are yearly events and mostly ignored unless you get to some fancy number like 25 or 50. So few people make it to 50 that 40 has gotten rather important now as well.

Willard Scott says happy birthday to people who hit 100. And then after that big moment in the spotlight, the old coots get ignored unless they happen to be the oldest living person on the planet or something. I can understand the concept of oldest living person on the planet. I even understand that not very many people make it to age 100. But even fewer make it to 101 and that number gets ignored.

There are a couple birthdays that are important and that aren't round numbers. They are important because they are actual milestones. Turn 16 and get a driver's license. Turn 18 and get to go off to war. Turn 21 and no matter where you are, you are an adult. Maturity, good sense, and intelligence play no part in any of these birthdays, they are simply counting methods.

High school and college reunions are for numbers ending in 0 or 5. That fifth year high school reunion has to be the dumbest thing to happen. Nothing much has changed in five years. I went to my ten year reunion and not enough changed with the idiots that I went to high school with for me to want to spend $100 for a chicken dinner so that I can spend time with them ever again. I didn't like them when I was 15 (or any other year I was in high school) and they didn't seem improved with age.

However, we will soon be attending my husband's 40th high school reunion. They didn't have enough interest in having one, so they are sharing cost and space with the other local high school. It should be horrible. But we are going.

I wonder what life would be like if we didn't have ten fingers. What if we used a base eight? Then being 64 would be a big deal because 64 would be the new 100. If we had a base 12, then 144 would be the big mark and no one would hit it. What a shame.

Our fascination with round numbers is based on how many fingers we have. And since we have ten, this 100th post is a milestone.