5,438,601 Brain Cells Were Killed Writing This Article

(Copyright 2007 by Valentine J. Brkich. First printed in the March edition of The Point magazine, Wexford, Pa.)

Ever since my daughter was born, and even before, I’ve been bombarded with statistics about diapers.

For example, did you know that the average baby goes through 10 to 12 diapers each day? That’s around 75 diapers a week, which adds up to just around three million diapers a year! (Note: These numbers may be slightly inaccurate.) And, since each diaper costs on average 25¢, that means we have to adjust our family budget to account for an extra $2.5 billion dollars a year we’ll be spending just to keep our baby from making a doodie on the carpet! (Again, these are just ballpark figures, but you get the point.)

All this got me thinking about statistics in general and how our society is obsessed with them. Think about how much time is wasted on useless statistics. From baseball, to advertising, to politics, so many things are dependent upon statistics. What’s funny is that most stats can’t ever really be proven. They’re just myths like the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot or Dick Cheney.

Take the diaper stats I just gave you. How do you know if they’re even accurate? Heck, I could’ve just made them up in order to reach my required word count, not that I would ever fill an article with falsehoods just to fill space.

Miscellaneous Unrelated Statistic: Did you know that Oprah’s legion of devoted housewives outnumbers all the sands on all the beaches of the world? Amazing but true!

Maybe in the infinity of the Afterlife, we’ll be able to access any statistic instantly on anything I’ve ever wanted to know. How great would that be!

For example, remember when your mother would say: “How many times have I told you to chew with your mouth closed?” She would probably say that the number is somewhere in the thousands. In the afterlife, however, all you’ll have to do is search the Afterlife Statistic Index under “Mother Directives” and you’ll find the real answer (79).

My daughter is already five months old, but I wish I would’ve noted every time we’ve changed her diaper. Think of how useful this information could be down the road during her teenage years!

“How dare you talk to me like that after all I’ve done for you? Do you have any idea how many times I changed your dirty diaper when you were a baby? Here…look...on March 21, 2008…it says I changed your diaper exactly 13 times in one day—13 times!”

Now that would be a useful statistic.