I’m old enough to remember when a million of anything was a BIG amount.

I had a teacher who thought to teach us how much a million was by having each of us bring to class a cup of rice. She broke us up into teams and each team counted four cups of rice, grain by grain, one by one. It took our class almost a week to finish this assignment. When each team deposited their rice into a big glass container (that had been an industrial-size pickle jar), and added our counts to the blackboard list, we could see what a million of something, all in one place, looked like. We second-graders were in awe.

Now that I’m not a school kid anymore and I hear a million of anything, it’s just a number tossed around. Does anyone realize that a MILLION of anything is a lot of something? And now I’m hearing BILLION just jauntily used to describe how many people live somewhere or how much money is being spent of this or that, and just this week, a TRILLION was announced as being the total amount of some dollar rescue or maybe it was what they lost in monetary value this year. It is really hard for me to realize the magnitude of this number, and I started out knowing that a million was a BIG amount.

If you know me, you realize I don’t usually talk politics or religion because it is too controversial most of the time, but I’m worried that our politicians might not realize just how BIG these numbers are and how MUCH they represent. So I’m thinking if each person in the United States sent our new soon-to-be president just one grain of rice (taped to a letter) and explained we want him to understand how much a million is (it could be more than a million if this catches on), he would be thankful. I’ve already sent mine to the White House.

And as if this isn’t a big enough worry, think of this: What comes next? We have a million, billion, trillion but what next? A zillion? A bazillion? A gazillion? A trazillion? Or if we follow the alphabet it could be a nillion, a dillion, a fillion or a hillion, etc. I’m really worried no one has planned ahead, thought this through and made this necessary decision, and I think someone should alert the powers-that-be to hurry up and … Well, I’m not sure I want them to hurry into this decision because if the word is decided upon and available, they just might use it too soon.

If anyone hears or knows the answer to this what-next question and can put my mind to rest, please let me know. I need more sleep than I’m getting now.

Contact Donna Lee Anderson at welltoldtales@aol.com.