Rating

Alex has a mathematical viewpoint; he would prefer to quantify rather than to describe. With people, he would like to look at their driver’s licenses to discover what he sees as the important facts: birth date, height, and weight. However, since most people do not want to reveal their ages and sizes, he has learned not to ask these questions. He once told me that he wanted to be a doctor because doctors can ask people how old they are, how tall they are, and how much they weigh without being considered rude.

He has even devised his own measurement systems. For example, he uses “dropodos” to rate how deep a person’s voice is. My mom and I have matching dropodos scores of 344, while Alex gives his dad a 600 and my dad a 646. He apparently now has the deepest voice with a dropodos of 681. Another system he devised years ago was the “car” ranking, which is based on distance and the number of turns we make in the car to go someplace. Going to my parents’ house, a ten-minute drive, is “car 9”; going to the university, a fifteen-minute drive, is “car 11.” A similar system he invented is for shopping. He notes how far away items are from the door. In Walmart, the yarn is farthest from the door; it gets an “86 miles away” ranking, while in Menard’s home center, the far-flung garden area is “75 miles away.” Alex understands the concept of actual miles; this is just his method for noting store layouts.

In addition to real and invented measurements, Alex uses percentages to compare and contrast. His favorite food, shrimp, rates 100%, while his second favorite, meatloaf, earns a 99%. Popcorn, his least favorite food, not surprisingly, rates a 0%. If he really enjoys an activity, he will eagerly tell us that he “liked it one hundred percent!” Similarly, he rates people’s qualities. For instance, he rates his dad as 95% smart, whereas I earned a 98% for intelligence. He gives himself a 99% smart ranking, and only God surpasses him as 100% smart. He is pleased that God knows everything and talks about asking Him questions when he gets to heaven. In another rating, according to Alex, his dad tops me in humor: Daddy gets a 96% for being funny, while I’m at 95%. Alex thinks he is not only smarter than both of us, but also funnier at 98%. He ranks my uncle—who is a funny guy—as the funniest human he knows at 99%; only God tops Bud at 100%. I like that he recognizes God’s sense of humor as well as His wisdom; I’ll bet that God smiles when He hears Alex recommending Him so highly.

“But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:30