what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

4070 is the PLU number for celery.  It’s also the PO Box number for the department of Intercollegiate Athletics at a large state university on the Montlake Cut that’s now in the Big Ten conference. You might know of it. Last week this rubber band ended up on my arm and it reminded me of Cat and her encyclopedic knowledge of PLU #s. So I sent her this photo and she guessed “broccoli?” 

 

In our very brief texts she explained her “knack for numbers” has fallen into the background since she’s had kids. I believe if she was thrown back into that number salad her recall would quickly return. 

 

Bike messengers’ brains grow in a special place to accommodate numbers, street addresses, suite numbers, messenger numbers, times, dates and all kinds of random numerical shit. Just as barista brains grow to accommodate non fat decaf extra hot iced white hemp milk mochas with half vanilla half pumpkin spice moo moo choo choo foo foo horseshit coffee drinks. 

 

That messenger part of my brain glommed right on to the number casserole in my current place of employment. There are a lot of numbers floating around. 

 

9410 forwards to 4943 which forwards to 8051

 

4990 used to forward to 4950 but now 4400 forwards to 4990 so don’t fuck it up  

 

5320 and 5325 go to 1800 and so does 1812

 

5915 goes to 1635

 

Most of the mail for 3903 Brooklyn Ave NE doesn’t go to 5667 the department in there, it goes to 4969 which used to be at that address before it moved to  4300 Roosevelt but now it’s at 4328 Brooklyn NE

 

regurgitated 

reiterated 

renumerated 

 

two actuaries 

walk into a bar 

play it again

 

numerology 

numerals 

numbers

 

taxonomy

codification

nomenclature

 

jargon

lingo

language

 

meaningless

gibberish

out of context

 

room numbers

street addresses

zip codes

 

post office

box numbers

hand delivered

 

analog

analogy

number salad

 

route the route

run the numbers

don’t fuck it up

1150

1202

1207

1248

1210

1230

1237

1242

1243

1244

1245

1263

1264

1265

1266

1267

1268

1270

1271

1277

1310

1410

1525

1550

1560

1570

1580

1610

1615

1616

1617

1618

1619

1620

1621

1622

1640

1651

1652

1653

1654

1655

1700

1750

1800

1812

5200

5320

5325

5720

5726

5730

5734

5740

 

these are the box numbers on my morning route but I'm not necessarily hitting them in this order

 

we can talk about street addresses too as much as you'd like to

 

we can also talk about the afternoon routes and their box numbers and street addresses some other time

 

---

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2 Comments

. said...

This is why I only go to bars with green guest checks and analog registers. before technology and point of sale cash registers a good bartender could add up a tab of wells, taps domestic or micro, along with the several top shelf whiskeys for the lawyer who wants to be your friend in their numerical patterns to arrive at the whole in an instant or mid conversation. Kind of like tetris. Now a days you ask “where’s the tab at” the bartender says “hold on let me look at my screen” and you reply “my lawyer here has this one.”

Posted April 22, 2025 07:37 AM | Reply to this comment

Cat said...

When I took kids on trips to Guatemala my boss used to think that a fun way to end any given exhausting day was to have Cat rattle off the phone numbers of students on the trips, just for funsies. Pre cell phones, I would call those kids countless times before the trips on corded phones with push button dialers and I had those numbers memorized in no time.

Posted April 22, 2025 08:47 PM | Reply to this comment

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