My son only has one struggle with numbers, and that’s the ones on his Advent calendar. His issue is not with the maths involved, but rather that he wants to open every single window at once and eat them all right now. It dispenses a small chocolate for each day of December and he’s keenly aware that going beyond his daily allotment would betray this pact.
He hovers over the forbidden windows, paralysed. Finally, he waves his hand to signal I can take it out of his sight, in the manner of a king bored by a meddlesome subject. He keeps to its plan, not out of fear of our authority, or the treacly spectre of heart disease, but out of respect for the numbers themselves. He wants to eat the chocolates, but not as much as he wants the world to know his command of numbers, and their order. Torn between avarice for chocolate and fealty to maths, his respect for the numbers wins.
