My web hosts provided me with a technological display of facts, figures, data, stats and page hits. I have graphs. I have charts. I have maps. I have arrows. I have bullet points, reports, file and folder phenomena!

Page hits. I am obsessed with page hits. I logged in 10X per day this past week. OCD at its finest or its worst?

Anyway, this addiction to numbers reminds me of days gone by staring down at the scale...and the survey says...Big Number=Bad Day. Or spying a spot in the shower and jumping on web doc to wade through pages of scary skin diseases. Or when my own doc says to keep my blood pressure in check, meaning "a little less salt", buying a monogrammed blood pressure cuff...to store right by the scale and next to the dermatology dictionary.

All of the above is akin to taking my emotional temperature with a mouthful of jalapenos.

Time for a little story. A true story.

Place: Small mid western town

Setting: Small mid western town hall meeting

Subject: Whether to buy a police car

Discussion: We have one police officer. The officer needs a car. If he had a police car, there would be less crime. He could write more tickets. The town would be safer and have more money.

Final vote: 149-0 No police car.

Rationale: Currently, the one policeman patrols the entire town on foot. No one ever knows where he will be or when. Sometimes he will pop out on Main Street just as the high school basketball game lets out. He writes speeding tickets. Sometimes he walks down the alleys...just as a fight is breaking out. He mediates. Sometimes, he hovers by the one motel, on the edge of town, to keep an eye on overnight travelers. A walking night light.

The policeman does not need a car. He does a much better job when no one knows when or where he will show up. He does not need to own a car. He "owns" the element of surprise. 

The moral of this story: Often it is better not to know exactly what will happen next. Sometimes it is perfectly okay to be surprised and delighted when people show up.

Consider me surprised and delighted to see you.

The dermatology book is history. The cuff is in the trash..and I am inching away from the scale.

Page hits? I'll leave that up to you.