“how are there enough
social security numbers for
all the american citizens?”
i thought in my sleep.
woke up, turned over,
grabbed my notebook,
and plotted:
mine is
the population is
in the hundreds of
millions:
so, there are enough
social security numbers for
all the american citizens,
after all.
the cold sweat must have been
because i thought there were
only eight digits, which means
we'd have been a couple hundred
million social security numbers
short.
i am running for congress,
dear citizen, because
these are the things
keeping me up at night.
i'm worried about your grandchild,
our billionth citizen, who
will need an extra digit
for their social.
i'm looking out for you,
the number, you in the tens
place of my polling numbers,
you in the thousands of your
county, yanking the pen out of
your shirt pocket and checking
the box next to my name.
pay no mind to my inability
to count to nine digits.