Seattle Home Inspector's Blog

     What is the fascination the human brain has with numbers?----and I don’t mean as in mathematics (something that this human’s brain has never been fascinated with).  I am talking about numbers like 3, 7, and 13. 

     Some times our “issues” with numbers----get fancy names.  Like “Triskaidekaphobia” ----the fear of the number 13.  “Tetraphobia” is the fear of the number 4.  And for all of you fans of the movie Friday the 13^th we have: “paraskavedekatriaphobia.”   Now I don’t know about you, but if I am committed to some loony-bin I would like a little bit shorter medical description on my chart than that.   

     Did you know that in some parts of the world they leave out the 13^th floor of the building to avoid the number 13?  Well not actually the whole floor---but they do skip the number and just go from 12 to 14.

     Of course here in the Rain everyone is well beyond being interested in points numbers.

     Human beings seem to like to create “importance” or “meaning” where there most likely isn’t any. 

     We like date-type numbers such as “9/09/09”----or attach meaning to numbers like “666.”  We even pick “special” numbers to play in the lottery---does anyone ever just use “random” numbers?  No, you use all your kid’s birth dates or the date you got the pet turtle.

     Who doesn’t like to marvel at their odometer turning over to some big number like from 99,999 to 100,000 and then feel the “let-down” as it predictably rolls over to boring old 100,001----but at least that has some sort of pattern to it----unlike its close cousin 100,003.  All we can do at this point is to look forward to the next big event----“111,111.”

     Sometimes it just seems to be about patterns.  Patterns are in themselves a kind of meaning----perhaps meaning isn’t as “important” as we would like to think.

     Back when I was young and foolish (as opposed to old and foolish), I was driving down the New York Thruway toward The City in my Toyota Corolla when it so happened that my odometer was approaching 88,888.  For those of you that have driven the Thruway, you know that there are some long, desolate and boring stretches that just beg for SPEED----and where the mind hopelessly searches for some way to entertain itself.  I thought it would be kind of cool to snap a picture of the event----and at the same time capture the speedometer at 88 miles per hour.  Now it isn’t often that our obsession with finding meaning in numbers (where there isn’t any) could get you killed----but that never stopped anyone. 

     I have the picture packed away somewhere.

     I got thinking about this the other day at an inspection way out in the boonies----almost as far out in the boonies as where Steve Smith lives.  The house was at the end of a 5 mile long dead-end road.  As I pulled up to the garage door this is what the odometer looked like:

     I really tried my best to find some meaning in this----but alas there was none to be found (well except for capturing proof that my car needs cleaning).

     Doesn’t it make you wonder how many other things there are in our lives that we attach meaning to where there really isn’t any? 

     Perhaps it is just true that things only have the meaning that we give them.

     It is probably a good idea to do as good a job at that as we can.

Charles Buell

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DeCroe, is my "etherial" home inspector assistant and occasionally flies into my blog and other people's blogs to offer assistance. To find out more about her beginnings just click on Raven.