CHANCES:

That you bought enough candy – 47%

That you’ll run out of candy – 53%

That you bought enough candy and wouldn’t have run out if you hadn’t been dipping into it for the past 2 weeks – 76%

That you didn’t realize everyone else in the house had been dipping into it too – 24%

CHANCES:

That there would be a Halloween. snowstorm that would cancel school – 2%

That there would have been a Halloween snowstorm that would have canceled

school when you were a kid – 0%

CHANCES:

That last nights World Series game was the best ever – 61%

That you went to sleep after Texas went up by three runs in the 7^th – 86%

That you’ll make a promise to watch game 7 to completion no matter what to make up for it – 75%

That game 7 will be the worst game in World Series history and include a 2 hour 20 minute rain delay and you'll be angry you stayed up to the end just to watch your team lose– 30%

CHANCES:

That when you turn on the radio it will be during an ad – 96%

That when you turn on public radio it will be during a fund raiser – 97%

That if you give to the fund raiser they’ll shut up – 0%

CHANCES:

That you remembered to take your pills today – 68%

That you can’t remember if you remembered to take your pills today – 49%

That the symptoms of not taking enough are worse than the side effects of taking too many – 50%

That if you gave your pills to a professional athlete he took them – 41%

CHANCES:

It was the best of times – 12%

It was the worst of times – 87%

It was the New York Times – 1%

CHANCES:

That your child got his/her college application in before the deadline – 88%

That it was on the day of the deadline – 44%

That you are much more happy about your child leaving for college than you were before the application process – 99.59%

CHANCES:

That there actually is a good way to lose an eye - .0001%

CHANCES:

That the grass is greener on the other side – 96%

That the grass is bluer on the other side – 2%

That the grass is bluer on the other side if you live in Kentucky or across from the Boise State football stadium – 99.7%

CHANCES:

That even though you thought you heard what your wife said, you didn’t really – 60%

That you’ll hear it again – 98%

That you swear you’ll try to do better next time – 80%

That you will actually do any better – 12%

CHANCES:

That your bicycle will get stolen if you don’t lock it, even if you’re “just running in for a second.” – 41%

That your unicycle will get stolen if you don’t lock it - .006%

That if your unicycle does get stolen, some clown did it – 99.8%

CHANCES:

That when you are going through an old photo album you will come across a picture of you wearing the same clothing that you presently have on – 39%

What This Blog is For

I remember my father taking me to my first baseball game. I was 9 years old and quite excited and I wanted to know everything that was going to happen before we got there. I peppered my father with a thousand questions: Will there be a lot of people? Will Luis Tiant play? Can we get a foul ball? Can we get a hot dog? What if they are out of hot dogs? What’s in a hot dog?....

My Dad dutifully answered my questions until he either got tired of them or was stumped, at which point he would utter one of his favorite catch-all phrases, “You pays your money, you takes your chances.”

After years of hearing this repeated wisdom I came to understand two things – First, my father had trouble with the English language, and second, there are no sure things in life.

We are always taking chances in life. Not just major, calculated path-of-life altering chances, but daily. Leaving the house is taking a risk. It’s probably more of a risk if you live in Baghdad. Or if you’re a NASCAR driver.  If you’re a NASCAR driver in Baghdad, well, my advice would be to stay in bed.

Of course, staying in bed has its risks too. Bed bugs, bed sores or even the possibility of inhaling a pillow feather and having it pierce your esophagus and becoming permanently lodged there so that you forever speak with a strange trill, are all risks of rolling over when that alarm rings. The question becomes – What is the greater risk? What are my chances of anything happening as I go about my daily routine?

That’s where What Are The Chances comes in handy. It acts as a sort of destiny calculator which determines the percentages for potential reactions to the everyday actions you take.  These may be life or death situations or they may be routine. The goal is not avoiding all danger, but knowing with clear aforethought, what you are getting into when you walk out that door. Or sit at your desk. Or sleep. Everything in life is a risk and I'll try to give you an idea of where anything you do will lead.

I have tried my best to present these stats in an objective way. Yet, I caution you to view these and all statistics with a jaundiced eye. We sometimes take surveys at face value without realizing that we are looking at them from the wrong angle. For example, a commonly known statistic is that most automobile accidents occur within five miles of home. My immediate reaction to this information would be to stay the hell away from home.

But statistics are incomplete pictures. The above stat could be a logical result of the fact that the five mile radius around home is where most people spend most of their time, thus allowing for more chance of an accident. Or, it could mean that most bad drivers start at home and rarely make it outside that five mile barrier without getting into a collision. If that’s you, then maybe the statistic should be that most automobile accidents occur within five miles of Bob. (Assuming your name is Bob.) So what we really learn from the fact that most accidents occur within five miles of home is to stay the hell away from Bob.

What you learn from the calculations presented here is up to you. If not exactly answers, let them provide some guidance. Let them offer some precautions and help you get a handle on your expectations. Just remember that odds are only probabilities. Anything can and will happen. As my father said, you pays your money, you takes your chances. And chances are, if you knew what was in it, you wouldn’t eat the hot dog.