you can count on it

We are controlled by numbers. The number of days until our next birthday, the number of days until our next vacation, the number of days until our death, always changing but never changing, these numbers never lie. I wake up and a number is attached to me, 5:14. I step out of bed it is 8 steps to the bathroom. I put .500 of toothpaste on my toothbrush and brush for 1 minute consisting of 227 strokes. Off to the kitchen for 6 cups of coffee. Staring at the clock until 8:00 then it’s time for a 6 minute shower just so I can get in my car and drive 11 miles to work so I can sit there for 8 hours to collect the numbers they give me for being there. When it’s 6 I go home another 11 miles going through 7 stoplights and burning .78 gallons of fuel. Upon arrival at my house I check the mailbox which is 23 paces from the back door to find the 5 bills that wait for their numbers. Once the number is determined for each bill I turn the computer on which takes 58 seconds. Now that I’m in the true home of 0’s and 1’s I apply the numbers I received from work to each bill so that the number end up 0. I trade my life for numbers every day. This may seem monotonous but this is how our world is set up. Numbers traded back and forth to get what we need. I know people who save their numbers and are afraid to use them. All their numbers do is sit in a computer and get tallied by 1’s and 0’s, the only numbers that seem to count these days. I will take the next 11 minutes and try to be number free, knowing it is impossible as the seconds fade away. We live in a society where humans are second to numbers, please stand up to be counted as one of the numbers that doesn’t abide.