Craig had a big day today.
Pretty proud of himself.
The only thing is it’s not the “I volunteered at a homeless shelter” type of proud. You know, the proud that you want to try to slip into every conversation you have, like when you finish a crossword puzzle or correctly predict the end of a movie. No, today he's the type of proud that carries with it an equal helping of embarrassment - like when you give yourself a great haircut or fart in the elevator without anyone knowing it was you. The feeling of pride is undoubtedly there, but he's not so sure about letting other people know about it.
It all started when he was 5 or 6 or so. Craig was futzing around with a calculator. He realized that if he hit 1 + 1 and then the 'equals' button he'd get 2, but if he hit 'equals' again he'd get 3, again he'd get 4. Basically if Craig kept punching the 'equals' button over and over he would continually add 1 to his grand total.
The first time Craig did it he got up to 200 or so, got bored and went and watched some Reading Rainbow. Every now and then he'd pick up the calculator again and try and beat his record. He'd get up to 1,000 and his mom would take the calculator away and tell him to go outside and try to make some friends.
The cycle repeated itself until one day, a few years later, when Craig was trying to beat his record he realized how stupid and pointless it all was. What was he thinking? What a waste of time. He decided that what he should being doing is REMEMBERING the number he left off on so the next time, instead of starting over at 1 + 1 equals equals equals equals equals equals, he could start at whatever number he left off on, hit + 1 equals equals equals equals and continue to increase his all time record. That changed everything.
So that's what Craig did.
Years passed. Craig eventually got to 50,000. Soon 50,000 became 625,144. 625,144 became 4,875,222. 4,875,222 became 52,008,021. Every second he could spare was spent hammering away at that equals button.
To this day, at work, in meetings, and during conference calls, the current grand total constantly taunts him. "Hey loser. This is 66,660,333. Word on the street is I'm as high as your going to get. While you're sitting there listening to these suits discuss fiscal goals there's a bored kid in Kansas with a calculator that's hit the 'equals' key over 200,000 times today alone. I suggest you break out your Casio SL-450 and get to work." So, while Craig's coworkers think he's frantically crunching numbers, going for that big promotion, in actuality he is participating in a fictitious button-punching race with an imaginary boy in Topeka.
Well, earlier today, while riding the subway, Craig reached the number 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9.
Over the course of his life he's hit the 'equals' button on his calculator 123,456,789 times.
He's very Proud. . . yet very ashamed.
Craig wanted to tell someone about it so bad he actually had the phone in his hand before it hit him.
"Don't ever tell anyone about this you sad, sad, pathetic man."
"Try reading a book you crazy bastard."
He was forced to celebrate in his own mind.
Craig stood up, raised his arms, closed his eyes and pictured himself drinking Courvoisier
with other misunderstood geniuses like Andy Koufman, the inventor of the slide whistle, Liberace, the woman who memorizes bar codes, and Busta Rhymes.
Tomorrow he plans on retiring his trusty Casio SL-450.
He might take up calligraphy.
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