I was stumped in a meeting this week when the facilitator asked each of us to pick a number between 1 and 99 that could represent us and then explain why. (Ah the mandatory icebreaker.)
Some people had no problem. One guy picked 22, which was his football jersey number in high school. One person took 42, which is apparently the answer to all problems in the Universe, as calculated by a computer in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. Someone else picked the year of their birth, 56, another the year of their high school graduation, 72.
Me, I sat and pondered. (Okay overthought the question.) None of those number categories seemed right to me, for myself. I don’t think of myself in terms of the year I was born, nor the year I graduated anything (kindergarten, high school, CSULB). The year of my marriage is good except I’m a widow so not going there. I have two children and a grandchild so how do I play favorites and pick one’s birth year over the others?
My weight is over the upper limit of 99 (and we’re done with that subject). Height? 62”? But I don’t particularly want to identify myself with being short.
Never played a sport with an assigned jersey number so that’s out. Don’t have a favorite NFL player whose jersey number I could borrow on the spur of the moment.
Year I joined the home of the day job? 80 has a nice round ring to it and this was a day job meeting after all. OK, 80 is a possibility but after hearing the explanation behind the 42, I wanted something cooler! How about 97, the year Skynet took over the world in the Terminator movie series? Oh wait, that didn’t happen so I guess not.
Who came up with this idea????
I watch Channel 4 news. My phone number adds up to 44. I don’t have a lucky number but I’m not scared of the number 13 so maybe I should select that. Oh the pressure.
Could I be my sign of the Zodiac instead? Or maybe my Chinese sign of the Zodiac? So I can talk about dragons?
No, has to be a number. Nine! Nine is my number! For the nine lives of a cat, which I’ve used up two an
d I’m on my third but let’s go with nine. Whew.
What one number would you have picked to represent yourself? And why?
9 is a good number!
But wow it took me forever to arrive at that! The class was not very appreciative by then time I did. Oh WELL.
I wouldn’t have a clue what number I’d choose, so I guess I would stick with ‘one’. My birth date added together breaks down to the number one. That’s good enough for me.
I think that’s a good reason to have the #1! I never thought of that but my birthday would add up to 9, so now I have two reasons to pick the number. If I ever get another class or meeting where this is the ice breaker, I’ll be ready. Thanks for commenting!
24. or 47.
But I like numbers. 😉
I can see that! I just never tried to reduce myself to ONE number before (and under pressure in that darn meeting too). Usually people want too many numbers from me – SSN, phone, address, badge and on and on. I’m ready for that! Thanks!