Verpfuscht. I’m going to
start this month’s diary with a math note. Yes, I know this is unorthodox, but, as Tony Manero says in
that movie, “I got my reasons.”
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To get in the right key, let me tell you what happened the other morning. I was walking my dog around these quiet suburban streets. At one point, a middle-aged guy — unknown to me, but obviously (it turned out) a local homeowner — was walking towards me on the other side.
He: “You can’t walk your dog here.”
Me: “Can so. It’s a public street.”
He: “There’s a town ordinance.”
Me: “The town ordinances only require me to keep my dog leashed, which I do, and to scoop after him, which I always do.”
To demonstrate my citizenly virtue, I reached into the back pocket of my jeans, where I keep the plastic bags I use to scoop. Guess what: This was the one day in the year I forgot to pack them. The one day I meet an obstreperous dog-hating homeowner is the one day I forget to pack poop bags!
Fortunately, I got out of there alive. Boris, as often happens with the very old, is considerably verstopft (i.e. constipated — I’m having a fire sale on German words this month).
Things have been going that way all month, though. April was totally verpfuscht. And I know why. And I’m going to tell you.
Primzahlfrei. It’s to do with an actual prime obsession that I actually have. This is kind of personal, and a bit embarrassing, but harmless — by comparison, I mean, with other obsessions I might have.
Here’s the thing: My days are numbered.
I have a wee text file I keep for checking historical data, with all the dates Anno Domini up into the middle of this century tallied by Gregorian date, astronomer’s Julian, day of the week, and a couple of others. I generated the thing myself with VBASIC code.
One of those others is my own day number — I mean, counting my date of birth as day one. The first and last days of April were my personal days 22,583 and 22,612, respectively.
Now guess what: There is not a single prime number in that range. April was a prime-free month for me, personally (or anyone else born on my birth date). It was, to use the proper mathematical term of art, primzahlfrei.
This doesn’t happen often — just three times in the past ten years: March 1999, June 2002, and July 2006. It won’t happen again until August 2014. It’s happening more often now than it used to, though, as the numbers get bigger and the primes thin out according to well-known mathematical laws.
Back in my salad days, when the primes were dense, it never used to happen at all. I was 26 years old the first time it did. Same with prime birthdays — I haven’t had one for 30 years (though there’s one coming up in 2011, I see).
So… No wonder I’ve been feeling under the weather. Not to worry, though. May is a prime-rich (primzahlreich) month — May Day itself a prime, followed by five others.
Whaddya mean, I’m a bit weird? We’re all a bit weird. This is harmless weird.
The power of the primes. So now I’m going to tell you my misfortunes this primzahlfrei April. Don’t worry, I have a sense of proportion — this is petty stuff, compared with real misfortune. It does illustrate the mystic power of the prime numbers, though.
Lawn Guy. Here on Lawn Guy Land, the sun came out at last, the birds commenced singing (“the birds all singing their fool heads off, and the ground all mucked up with arbutus,” was Dorothy Parker’s ode to spring, if memory serves) and the grass leapt up. Time for this suburban homeowner to bring out his lawn mower.
I dragged the old beast out from under six months’ accumulated debris at the back of the garage, filled it with gas, and pulled the starter cord ... and pulled, and pulled. Do you think the darn thing would start?
I consulted with a neighbor who is wise in these things. He: “Pour a little gasoline on the air filter.” I did this, and sure enough, the engine started. Then, after a few seconds, died. Repeat five times. Re-consult with wise neighbor. “You probably need a new plug.” That figures. I haven’t changed the plug since I bought the machine eight years ago.
Off to Sears. The plug was only $1.99, but while I was there I bought a new $15 blade and a pack of air filters — I’d noticed how dirty the air filter was — and a quart of oil. That, I thought, should make my little friend happy and eager to serve me for another year.
Not so. With new plug, blade, and air filter, the wretched thing still wouldn’t run for more than a few seconds. Another consultation with neighbor. “It’s messed up,” he said (except that he didn’t exactly say “messed up,” nor even “verpfuscht,” but something pithier). “Get a new one. They’re only a couple hundred dollars.” So they are; but I had laid out thirty for blade, plug, filters, and oil.
My mother-in-law, a very sweet lady who now rests at peace in the arms of Lord Buddha, had a phrase she used to describe the experience of shopping in the deeply consumer-unfriendly China of the 1980s: Hua qian mai qi — “You spend money to buy aggravation.”
