The Trials of Living Life by the Numbers

May 26, 1949: 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

January 1960: 93 pounds.

June 1970: 140 pounds.

August 1987: 165 pounds.

September 1999: classified.

As far as I’m concerned, I’ve just told you everything you ever need to know about me, because who I am and what I do is governed by numbers. In this case, it’s the number registered on my Detecto scale. Appropriately, the name “Detecto” conjures up my deepest, darkest secret--my weight.

Last winter, I had to get bindings put on a new pair of skis. The form asked my present weight.

“What’s the point of this question?” I asked the clerk.

“To get the tension on the bindings just right,” he said. “You know, so when you fall, the bindings release and you don’t break your leg.” Having broken my leg skiing many years ago, this seemed reasonable but not as simple as it might appear.

“Look, I’ve got kind of a problem here. I’m not going skiing for another six weeks, but I’m on a diet and the weight I’m at now is not going to be the weight I’m going to be in a few weeks. In fact, it’s not the weight I’m going to be at for the rest of my life. So what number should I put down?” I said in a rush.

The poor guy was stunned, “Gee, I dunno. That’s never come up before.”

Hey, this decision was significant. I’d already broken a bone once. Limbs or dignity--which would remain intact?

“Let me put it this way,” I tried. “If I fall, will my ski pop off more easily at the higher weight or the lower?”

“Higher,” he said.

OK. But I definitely wasn’t going to put down that very large number that was my current weight--yet I couldn’t fudge too much because I didn’t want my skis to release only with a Kate Moss aboard. So I got creative. When the clerk didn’t burst out laughing, I figured that I had fabricated a weight that seemed like a reasonable facsimile of me.

*

What power there is in numbers! My friends and I agonize and analyze endlessly over our dress sizes, our weight, our kids’ standings among their peers. “Zachary’s third in his class in math and the second-highest scorer on his basketball team,” volunteers one mom.

And then there’s that other number--age. This is one that is much harder to lie about.

At 17, when I first got my driver’s license, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to consider this a potential land mine. Once it’s stated, it’s on your records forever.

Recently, I was in Las Vegas with my three kids. At an arcade, we watched a man promise great prizes if he failed to guess their weight or age within a small range. My kids all tried, but the man guessed correctly and they won no prizes. Determined to get that plastic blowup bat, they turned to me.

“Come on, Mom,” they implored. “Let him try to guess your weight or your age.”

By this time there were several people gathered around.

“Pleeease, Mom, we want the bat.”

I looked at the man. “I’ll give you $10 for the bat,” I said.

“Nope,” he replied, “you gotta play the game.”

By now, many people--many thin, young people--were urging me to get on with it.

“OK,” I said, breathing deeply, “Guess my age.”

“Forty-nine,” he announced. The guy didn’t even have the decency to wait a beat.

Groans from my kids. “He guessed it,” said my oldest.

“Let him try to guess how much you weigh,’ pleaded my middle child.

I looked at my kids. I looked at the very large scale. I looked at all those thin, young people waiting expectantly. I couldn’t do it.

“Please,” I begged the man, “let me give you $20 for the bat.”

“Sorry, lady.”

My kids and I slumped away.

But maybe, after all, the number can be in the eye of the beholder.

As I was putting my little daughter to bed the other day, she asked me how tall I was.

“Five feet, 4 inches,” I said. “And how tall are you?” I asked, knowing this was a number she cared about.

“Four feet exactly,” she said proudly.

“Well, I love every inch of those 4 feet,” I said, kissing her good night.

“I love you,” she said, “as tall as the Empire State Building.”

And that made this 17,888-plus-days-old, numbers-obsessed mom feel 1,450 feet tall.