Try to Figure This One Out

The imagination of the average person goes blank when the subject is money in amounts over a certain number.

I know what it costs to buy a house, for instance, or a car or a weeklong vacation for four. But if Tyco International says its former chief, L. Dennis Kozlowski, took $33 million in loans he never repaid, or that he charged the company $14 million to furnish an apartment for his ex-wife, I must admit ... I have no idea what they are talking about.

The brain which has been assigned to me does not have that database.

Which is why it was helpful last week when the Tyco people added some four-digit details: They said Kozlowski spent $6,000 of company money for a shower curtain, for instance. They said he spent $2,200 for a nice wastebasket. He bought two sets of sheets for almost $6,000; a very special pincushion for $445.

These are numbers that bring an average person's imagination into play. I know three- and four-digit numbers. I, and most people I know, live among these kinds of numbers.

"Tell him how much you get from your pension," said Joanna Bell-Richards, coaching one of her clients, an elderly woman who sat in a cluttered living room with two televisions, a lot of old furniture and a beautifully maintained secretary bookcase containing all the classics of literature.