It took a lot of effort reconcile two forms of order: letters and numbers. Numbers had identities because they had names. Just as I was picking up the sound of names fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and the mysteries of numbers that began with twenty, I became quite frustrated with eleven and twelve. Here were two sets of two symbols with distinct names that didn’t fit. They broke the pattern, the beautiful symmetry, between place and place value. And how I ever despised thirteen as a concept because there was not only was there no firteen nor seconteen. Where was thirteen anyway? It wasn’t on the clock. It wasn’t on any packaging. Good things never came in packages of thirteen.[…]