Beating Up the Odds

I have always wondered about the one out of five dentists surveyed who did not recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum. Could he have recommended sugared gum? Or did he go with something completely different, like smoking? After all, he wasn't, as far as we know, an oncologist.

The real stroke of brilliance in the iconic ad, as far as I am concerned, is not that the advertising wizards managed to convince us that a general preference for sugarless gum was a specific endorsement for Trident. Rather, it was the way they presented the statistic. Four out of five sounds compelling, practically unanimous. Eighty per cent, by contrast, betrays considerable uncertainty. The eightieth percentile. It screams mediocrity.

Chew on this for a moment: Eighty per cent of dentists surveyed recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum. That means twenty per cent do not. Suddenly the lone dissenter doesn't seem all that lonely. Not a rarity at all, not a mere blip on the rolls of dentistry. Any one of us could have found ourselves in a renegade's chair, being chewed out for chewing. There was a solid twenty per cent chance.

Somebody I know is dying too young, and word has it she resents being a statistic. She is that one out of seven childhood friends who is being plucked out early, the one out of however many friends that  none of us, in our wildest dreams, expects to be. Especially when you're the one who eats right, exercises regularly, flosses every day. Chews sugarless gum. Doesn't smoke. The odds are against it; six out of seven (and here I am not being scientific, just tossing out a number based on a very small sample) seem poised to make it all the way through to old age, and that's a number that seems rather soothing. A lot more soothing than, say, eighty-five per cent. A "B." Not exactly a ringing endorsement for guaranteed longevity. Would she take comfort in knowing she has not been singled out, that she has plenty of company, a full fifteen per cent? Probably not, and frankly it would make the rest of us a little nervous.

But enough about death. An old friend told me the other day that my blog, lately, makes him cry. He pointed out the thread of loss and despair that seems to run through it, even when I go for days without mentioning coffins or kids leaving the nest or losing tennis matches to people who can barely walk. "It's all in good fun," I told him. "And the coffins were psychedelic, far from morbid." He wasn't buyin' it. Apparently, a solid four out of five posts depress him. Oh well, that's only eighty per cent; that means twenty per cent of my ramblings do not move him to tears. I can live with that.

And, speaking of numbers, Day 1 has arrived. Monday, July 1st, the day on which I need to stop puttering around doing administrative matters and start getting things done. It is barely dawn, and I have already hit the ground running: I have fed and walked the dog, checked emails, almost completed a new post, and pondered the great mystery of the fifth dentist.

Statistically, it is likely that I will disappoint myself on Day 1, not get nearly enough done. Anyone who has started a diet on a Monday knows what I am talking about. I probably have a one in five chance of success. Ugh.

Hey wait a second. That's twenty per cent. Not bad odds at all.