The 400 Blows

At long last, a post about Thing 2, who I saw two weekends ago.

Thing 2, during one of his frequent sword playing exercises (nearly anything longer than wide becomes a sword in his hand), was mercilessly beating a tree branch with a stick.

"You're sure doing an number on that tree." said his grandfather.
"400!" Thing 2 replied.

400, or any number between 400 and 499, is the highest you can go in Thing 2's numeral system. I suppose if I were a 4-year-old, I might reckon that sticking a four in front of the astronomically high hundred would produce the penultimate number.

For a brief moment when Thing 2 forgot the sword-like qualities of the ruler I had foolishly purchased for him, I tried to show him how to measure his foot. When I read the number at the tip of his toe (5 inches or something), he immediately corrected me with an enthusiastic "400!" 400 is the only possible measure of anything important, such as giant bananas that eat little boys. According to Thing 2, these bananas are 400 year-feet, but units are irrelevant next to the penultimate number.

Thing 2 also enjoys stringing together lesser numbers, mostly in order, sometimes in Spanish. 23 is a good one. Thing 2 said, "Channel 23 is awesome!" as he watched cartoons in the hotel. I'm not sure we were actually watching channel 23 at the time, but again, such things are irrelevant next to the quality of the number.