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large numbers

“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.