Spelling out numbers

I was talking to my friend Eric the other day and I think I have arrived upon a fun and safe way to make people question your sanity: requesting numbers to be spelled out. It is definitely a task that I would find slightly amusing to be asked to perform.

I ask people all the time to spell out words or names, but now I'm going to take it one step farther. A typical conversation would look something like this:

Man-- "Two hundred thousand people live in Des Moines"
Me-- "Can you spell that out for me please?"
Man-- "Oh yes, the s's are silent. It's, d-e-s."
Me-- "No, sir, you misunderstood me. I am familiar with the word Des Moines. Could you please spell out the number."
Man-- "Are you f'ing with me?"
Man-- "Please say them one digit at a time as you would say one letter when spelling out a word. For example, the number 10, as I have learned, is spelled 1-0. It's a problem I have."

Then, not having heard of the problem but not wanting to be insensitive to my bizarre impairment, the man would say "three hundred and fifty six thousand. . .3-5-6-0-0-0."

I'll let you know how that works.

Speaking of Eric, his uncle recently grilled Luarita Doan of the GSA, who seems to have numerous impairments of her own, foremost of which is her inability to honestly and legally head a government agency.

Here is the video of Rep. Bruce Braley's noble quest for transparency and competency in government.



Pretty inspiring stuff huh? You gotta love government oversight controlled by the Dems. An article over at TPM Muckracker has a little bit more on this story and it does a pretty good job of placing it in context along with the DOJ firings.