Odd, even

There's no special prize for turning 22 but my son likes his new age anyway. Why?

"It's a multiple of 11," he said. "Multiples of 11 are cool."

That's when I confessed my dislike of odd-numbered graduation years. Graduation years ought to be even. Odd-numbered graduation years strike me as, well, odd.

He pointed out that both he and his sister graduated in odd-numbered years.

"I know," I said, "and it made me squirm. Why couldn't you have flunked some things so you could postpone your graduation to an even-numbered year?"

I also confessed my discomfort with the current state of my walking log. At home I normally walk 3 or 6 miles so that my total number of miles is always divisible by 3, but in Florida I walked 2 or 4 miles at a time, making my current summer total 134 miles, which is not evenly divisible by 3.

This bothers me.

I keep my walking log on a small electronic sticky-note on my computer desktop so that I see it many times every day, and it annoys me every single time I see it.

I realize that this is irrational. It's the goal that matters, not the increments along the journey, but I simply don't find the number 134 as inherently satisfying as, say, 135 or even 132--which is even better because it's divisible by both 3 and 11!

Boy, wait until my son turns 132! That'll be something to celebrate!