Over the years in my sales career, I have had several clients express concern over house numbers. They would either pass on viewing a home altogether, or insist that I check with the city to ensure that those house numbers could be changed to a more favourable combination. I recall that the luck factor was of utmost concern, as it related to Feng Shui’s role in good fortune.
Without any informed guiding indicators like that myself, I wonder now if that was why I often found myself living beside train coupling yards, 24-hour drum and cymbal quality testing studios, and a commercial manure producer named Piles Of The Stuff.
I did become aware of another apparently significant number though. Since the advent of digital displays on clocks and devices like VCRs and DVD recorders, there has been a frequent worldwide phenomenon of what I believe is called “recurring numbers”. That would be when you glance towards a device and happen to see something like “11:11”, or “2:22”. I don’t know about you, but I see this sort of thing more often than I care to. And believe it or not, it’s a big topic of discussion in cyber-space! But then again, so are dancing cats on YouTube. Who am I to be judging attention spans?
If you surf The Googler, and type in “11:11”, you will find a number of theories with respect to the possible meaning of this occurrence. For example, the askangels.com website offers a rather simple and logical explanation. They believe a “force” is whispering in ears, causing people to look at clocks at that very exact moment to see those numbers. That “force” would be guides and angels in the hereafter.
I don’t know about you, but my idea of being fulfilled in the hereafter would probably involve something more exciting than spending eternity alerting Joe and Jane Public to recurring or sequential number occurrences. Don’t they offer bowling or stamp collecting for all time? Are you saying there are no eternal slot machines?
One thing for sure, these recurring and consecutive number sightings are a source of disagreement in the online community, and also a bit of an inspiration for people looking to explain the occurrence. I don’t mean to make too much fun, but I think if a man in a white coat with a butterfly net is standing outside your door, you may want to consider a lighter stance on the issue.
To be honest, none of this information has satisfied my curiosity as to why I keep seeing oddball numbers. 11:11, 12:12, 2:22 – these numbers just keep popping up in the course of my day, trying to get my attention. The first time I heard Leslie Feist sing her mega-hit 1,2,3,4 I thought that either she had just learned how to count or some higher power was subliminally trying to get me to buy an iPod Nano.
Okay, so I bought a few whenever the song came on – maybe there is something sinister about that number thing after all.
I’m sure this all means something in the big scheme of things, I just hope it doesn’t mean that I’ll be spending eternity trying to get heavenly addresses changed for my clients there, to luckier number combinations.
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
