It seems our minds have been flooded with numbers related to the coronavirus. How many people have been tested, how many positive results, how many negative results, how many are in ICU, how many, how many, how many … and it changes by the hour.
I have my own coronavirus-related numbers, and they have nothing to do with the virus itself. I would like to give you an example of how to turn bad numbers into good numbers, if only in your mind.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, the jeans I wore were a 40-inch waist by 34 inch inseam. As you probably can imagine, this stay-at-home thing has not been great for my waistline.
So in the interest of comfort, I did what we all put off as long as possible and sized up to a 42-inch waist. I keep telling myself this is only a temporary spike in belly circumference.
For whatever reason, the 42s are hard to keep up around my midsection where they belong. My guess is I may have come down with a case of donelap disease (where your belly done lapped over your belt).
So now that my jeans are riding a little lower than before, I had to buy a pair with a shorter inseam. So now my new size is 42-inch waist by 32-inch inseam. This is where the creative math comes into play and brightens my day.
Stay with me now: My pre-stay-at-home jean size was 40-inch waist by 34-inch inseam or 40 x 34 = 1,360. My new size jeans are 42-inch waist by 32-inch inseam or 42 x 32 = 1,344, which is 16 inches less material, so technically less material means smaller jeans.
So my way of thinking … and this could be that new math parents are talking about … but the way I look at it, I am actually getting trimmer.