Yeah, I've Done That A Million Times

have you ever told someone about something you've done a whole bunch of
times and used the phrase "I've done that a millions time"?

we usually blurt out this little numerical colloquialism without batting an
eye. but lately I've been thinking that a million is a pretty big number.
I've seen a million dollars before (through three feet of bulletproof
glass), but that doesn't even give you a real idea of the grand size of a
million really is. (they used $1,000 bills or something).

so how is it we can boast (or complain) that we've done ______ a million
times?

this has lead to a great deal of pondering on my part. the question I'm
faced with is "what CONSCIOUS activity have I done a million times?"

now, first and for most, not that I put the word conscious is in caps. I did
this because you can't count an involuntary action in this. so no saying "my
heart has beaten a million times," or "I've taken a million breaths."

I'm sure right off that bat you're already thinking "well, I've eaten a
million times, this was way easy, Exile, you sir, suck." to that I say not
so fast. using me as a model, take a look at the numbers:
there are 365.25 days in a year, I am 28 years old, so I've only racked up
10,227 days of being alive (we'll assume it's my B-day, which it's not).
now, if you take 1,000,000 and divide it by 10,227 that means I would need
to find an activity I've done at least 98 times a day. (that number goes up
even higher when you realize a few of those years were baby years... and I
was pretty lazy kid too.)

I even pulled in some help with this one, I asked a friend at work and we
couldn't even come up with a solution to this one. hell, even my flyer job,
where I was passing out 4,000 flyers a month would have required twenty
years of work to finally reach a million, and I just don't have that much
dedication...

so, my finally conclusion to this mental endeavor is that there is nothing
that I (or anyone else) have done a million times... unless we count
"touching our selves," but we're shooting for a million, not a billion.

exile