Numbers

Recently, I was informed by a TV commercial of a new roadside study, which found that 80% of drivers who tested positive for drugs tested positive for marijuana. To help me interpret this statistic, it explained that marijuana wasn't as fun and safe as I thought it was, and then asked, rhetorically, whether or not I was willing to risk my life (and presumably also the lives of innocent children and puppies) for a little entertainment. I'm not a statistics expert, and so I was forced to conclude that 80% of all traffic accidents in the United States are caused by marijuana, killing many, many puppies. Needless to say, I now support all forms of mandatory penalties for marijuana use.

This isn't the first time that statistics have been used to enrich my life and inform my decisions. My cheesecake diet, for example, was inspired by another TV commercial. If I used regular cream cheese, I might be killing myself with bucketloads of saturated and trans fat, but my brand contains 35% less fat than regular cream cheese. Thanks to this statistic, I can sleep soundly with the knowledge that eating 8 pounds of cheesecake every day is perfectly safe, and in fact quite nutritious.

Statistics can also be represented graphically, in order to help you understand them more easily. For example, I have created the chart below to illustrate the extreme danger posed by auto-erotic asphyxiation. As shown in the chart, you are more than three times as likely to die from strangulation during some weird bedroom ritual than from corn dogs, wolverines, falling pianos, clam chowder, and unicycle accidents combined (disclaimer: specific statistics on this blog may have been made up, but they are at least as reliable as US Weekly survey data). Obviously, running out of air while naked with a plastic bag on your head is a hazard that needs to be taken much more seriously by the American Medical Association. I encourage you to write an obnoxious letter.

Thanks to statistics, I also smoke slim cigarettes to prevent cancer, park my car several blocks from my house to avoid the area around my home where accidents are most likely to occur, own 45 dogs to prolong my life by at least a decade, and only drink laboratory grade distilled water filtered by reverse osmosis. And the best part is that TV and magazine ads do all the math for me. All I have to do is sit back and read the numbers.