Daily Story 206 - The Yarn Family

There was once a ball of yarn that was made up of a family. There was Mommy Yarn, Daddy Yarn, Daughter Yarn, Son Yarn, Doggy Yarn, and Crazy Hobo Yarn, and they all lived in a pretty little house made up of baby blankets and doilies and hand-crocheted coasters. One day, though, Daughter Yarn decided that she wanted to move out.

"But why would you want to leave us, sis?" asked Son Yarn in his saddest sad voice. He did not want Daughter Yarn to leave.

"Because I'm tired of being stuck in this ball all the time. I want to go out and live, to make new things, to... to be free!" Daughter Yarn replied dramatically. She was a very dramatic theater major.

"Fine, then we'll have to get the scissors," Mommy Yarn said. "Daddy Yarn, would you do the honors?"

"Certainly, my dear," said Daddy Yarn, and he went off to fetch the scissors, leaving Son Yarn to say his tearful farewells.

"I'll miss you, sis!" he sobbed as he gave Daughter Yarn a yarn-hug.

"I'll come and visit," Daughter Yarn reminded him. "It's not like you'll never see me again."

"You promise?" Son Yarn sniffled.

"Yes, I promise," said Daughter Yarn, just as Daddy Yarn returned with the scissors.

"All right, here we go," said Daddy Yarn, and with Mommy Yarn's help, he cut Daughter Yarn away from the rest of them, and she said one final farewell to Mommy Yarn, Daddy Yarn, Son Yarn, Doggy Yarn, and even Crazy Hobo Yarn, and they all yarn-hugged her in return, except for Crazy Hobo Yarn, who was a little preoccupied with some fishes, before she set out on her way to a new life and new adventures.

Daily Story 65 - The Personalities of Numbers

From a very young age, I felt that numbers were more than just representations of an amount of something. I felt they were beings with distinct personalities. It has to do with that little math trick, if you add up the numbers of a large number and they equal 9, it's a multiple of nine, if it equals 3 or a multiple of 3, it's a multiple of 3, and if it happens to be either of these two and it's an even number, it's a multiple of 6. And so, if you add my brilliant imagination, you get the following:

Nine is the best of them all. It mixes all the good qualities of all the numbers. It is the hero.

Eighteen is even better because it is an even number.

Multiples of three are the best. Three is stern, six is... kind of playful, but nine is a perfect mixture of the two.

One up from a multiple of three is bad. One is pure evil, four is an annoying little smart-ass, and seven is arrogant but not as annoying about it as four.

Two, five, and eight are the uptight lot that also save the multiples of three from the one, four, and seven. Two is very stern and unforgiving of failure, five is stern and does not much care for playing around, and eight is kinder and saves nine from the terrible deeds of one.

These numbers lend their traits to every number above and below them. Zero is a nine, eighteen is a nine, twenty-seven is a nine, and so on. Twenty-eight is a one, thirty is a three, thirty-four is a seven... you get the idea. It all depends on how far up they are from a multiple of nine.

Since I figured this out I've always walked in groups of six, though now multiples of four are all right as well since most music that I like to walk to is in 4/4. Thanks to this I now know how many steps there are every place I spend a lot of time in.

Also, nine is the best superhero there is. If you're ever in a jam, call for nine.