Number challenged

 

All through school I had problems with math with the exception of geometry which was visual and I could draw. It took me two years to get through algebra 1. To this day I don't care what X is.

Because I function at a base level, it was only in later adulthood that the truth revealed itself. A friend, who worked with children with learning disabilities gave me a test to use as a baseline for a project she was developing. She discovered I had a learning disability when it comes to numbers. 

This has caused me some problems throughout life.

When taking a statistics course I was in tears more than once trying to understand how to... I had no problems understanding the significance of the figures, but how to get them???? As my mother used to say when she couldn't do something, "If God came down to tell me to (fill in the blank) or I'll take you" she would reply, "take me now."

The French have a complicated way of expressing higher numbers. 97 is quartre-vingt-dix-sept. When I hear a clerk at the bakery tell me the price, it takes me a while to visualize what they want me to pay. The Swiss French and Belgians make it easier at nonante-sept. German is siebenundneunzig. Even then and in English someone says 97 and for me to understand takes longer than it does other people.

The solution when the price is 97 centimes is to slap down a franc or Euro.

And never mind trying to copy numbers. I was a nightmare for the receptionist at the last company where I worked when I gave her a fax to send. More often than not, I had copied the numbers wrong. I would just be back in my office and she'd call to tell me the number wouldn't go through or she'd reached some perplexed stranger.

"Oh Rosy, I'm so, so, so sorry."

She did say I was one of the few employees who admitted my errors making me feel better at a two level on a scale of ten.

I was in Paris for the umpty-umphth time with a girlfriend. I knew the Metro as well as a native or so I thought. She said we needed to take the M1 line to get to our destination.

M1 line? The Metro had numbers? 

I used the destination names: Stalingrad, La Defense, Châtelet, etc.

I've had my place in France since 1987. I've lived in Switzerland and France since 1990. My husband of five years recently referred to autoroutes by number. 

Autoroutes have numbers? 

These roads I've been up and down all around for 31 years?

"How..." he asked with a strong emphasis on how... "did you get around?

"The destination? The signs say things like Narbonne, Grenoble, Zurich, etc. in France and Bernn, Neuchâtel, etc. in Switzerland." 

The next time we are on one of those routes I need to check if the directional signs have numbers.