Out of all the characters on Sesame Street I would have to say that my least favorite one is The Count: he has all the makings of an obsessive/compulsive. (I strongly suspect that the whole counting thing is just the tip of the iceberg; just because they don’t show his excessive hand-washing, or the fact that he can never leave the house because he has to keep going back and checking to make sure that the oven is off doesn’t mean it’s not there.) But even if The Count didn’t have any other OCD stuff going on, the counting thing alone is plenty annoying. Think about it: how obnoxious would it be to hang out with someone that counted all the time? As it so happens, I can tell you how obnoxious it would be: very; the reason I can tell you this with complete certainty is because lately, wherever I go, I seem to be surrounded by parents that count.
You know the ones I’m talking about, the parents that preface every punishment with a countdown. In principal, of course, this is a very sound idea: you give the little monsters a bit of warning before you pull out the big guns; and, in principal, I’m sure that this method works very well. (I must admit that personally, however, I prefer the Old Testament method of discipline: swooping down like the hand of God to deliver both benedictions and punishments in a random, chaotic spree. Not only does it keep everybody on their toes, but it also ensures them of always having good stories to tell in group therapy). Alas, the same thing cannot be said for counting, because while the counting method may work very well in principal, when it is put into practice it kind of sucks.
There seems to be three schools of thought for the counting method. The first school is obviously some sort of a Waldorf school, because in this school the parents have either forgotten or are forbidden to mention the number that comes after two. In an effort, perhaps, to disguise this lack on their parts, they count to two so slowly that Supreme Court vacancies can arise and be filled without these parents ever even coming close to approaching the number three. Their countdowns go something like this: “O-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-e-e-e-e–(crickets chirping)–t-t-t-t-w-w-w-w-o-o-o-o-(more crickets, cobwebs form)”.
The second school of thought appears to be one with a more classical approach, seeing as how these parents have made a vow (clearly inspired by Zeno’s Paradox) never to reach their destination. Their countdowns, appropriately enough, go like this:(“One…two…two and a half…two and three-quarters…”.
The final school is made up of the parents who, perhaps like The Count himself, become so caught up in the counting that they seem to forget that the whole point was to eventually reach an end. (I don’t know how their countdowns go: I usually make my escape as soon as they get started; I strongly suspect though that these parents are probably the same people who, as children, insisted on singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” during every family vacation.)
The one thing that all of these counting schools have in common is that they all produce children who hear the order to “stop that right now” as “stop that whenever you feel like it.” I sometimes wonder how this will translate into their adult lives: will they feel betrayed that the cop didn’t count to three before he wrote them a speeding ticket? Or will it all end up on a positive note: will they be blessed with infinite patience and forgiveness for the transgressions of others? That would certainly be interesting. I can hear them now: “Ok dear, when I get to three I want you to stop doing that with the mailman, ok? One…two–come on now, you really need to start thinking about stopping–two and a half…