When Mallory became more serious about dancing, she auditioned and made the competitive dance team in the studio she had been at for years. I was ecstatic for her and clueless as to how much money this would end up costing. There were the monthly dance class fees which were significantly higher due to the number of classes added as a requirement of being on the team, fees for the competition, fees for each dance in the competition, costumes for each dance. It piled up fast.
The team would occasionally do fundraisers to offset the cost – usually a car wash or selling candy. It didn’t amount to much but it was something. Whenever a competition was coming up the parents were required to go to informational meetings. I was at one such meeting with a friend when the usual fee payments were being discussed. When that was over the studio turned it over to the father of one of the girls on the team to give a brief explanation of a fundraising opportunity.
He was not brief.
He came with a large tablet and a Sharpie to explain this scheme opportunity. It involved getting cable through a 3rd party who would then give a cut to the team. He drew a pyramid with stick people and houses and cable lines and piles of money and said, “Do you see this? People lie. Numbers don’t.” And when somebody asked for something specific about the money he would say, “I’m not sure what you mean. Can’t you see this? People lie. Numbers don’t.” What never made sense was why you would go to a 3rd party for cable when you could just call up Time-Warner and get what you wanted, but he kept selling and sweating as he worked the room. My friend leaned over and whispered, “Are you following this because I have no idea what he’s talking about.” “He’s talking about us being a bunch of liars,” I said. His wife sat in the front row, smiling and nodding, and I wondered if she felt like she was watching the death of her salesman husband. Finally the studio director cut it off but not before he pointed his Sharpie at his tablet and said, “You can’t deny this is an amazing opportunity. Remember, folks. People lie. Numbers don’t.”
*****
A few months ago the server for my blog sent me a notice that they had made some updates. From my end it looked a little different but it only took me a few minutes to get the hang of some of the minor changes.
When I write something new I will check the numbers for a few days after to see how things look. If I’ve gone a long time without writing and see that my numbers are depressingly low it motivates me to write again. Ever since this update, though, my daily numbers are crazy and I don’t know if the changes cast a wide net of undiscovered new readers or Russian hackers are trying to steal my literary thunder.
One thing I do know after six years of blogging is that the same thing holds true for me as when I was in high school. I’m not that popular and despite what I’ve been lead to believe these numbers are lying to me like Pinocchio.