How’s your day going?

Yes, I misconstrued things from the beginning, but honestly, the BBC made it way too easy to get the wrong idea. World’s Biggest Condom Maker to Raise Prices, the news headline called out, and in purely reptilian response my brain answered: “Geez! Just how big do those things have to be?”

I realize offering such a public glimpse into my private thought processes risks inviting people to conclude that I have no particular need for anything close to the world’s biggest condom, but I’m hoping you’re the sort of readers who won’t make too many, shall we say … short-sighted assumptions. I get along just fine, thank you.

Anyway, that’s not what this little disquisition is all about. The CEO of the company was warning that his firm might have to raise its prices by up to 30% because America’s war with Iran was disrupting the supply of materials used to make its products. If you’re wondering how fossil fuels got mixed up in your sex life, it’s because materials like ammonia (a latex preservative) and silicone-based lubricants are all derived from – you guessed it – oil.

The business executive went on to reveal that demand for the little things – once again, don’t make too many assumptions – had shot up something like 30% this year. Why? “In bad times,” he explained, “the need to use condoms is even more because you’re uncertain with your future.”

Is that it? Really? Uncertainty drives the market for prophylactics? The more bad things that happen to you, the more you need condoms? Cripes. I always thought that equation tilted the other way. In my neighborhood, a bigger collection of condoms usually meant things were going pretty well for you.

But, OK. Let’s take the word of the condom king and make an assumption – just this once – that some kind of socio-economic theory could be fabricated to correlate the number of bad things happening to you with the number of prophylactics in your possession. Yeah, it’s a stretch (here we go), but I’m sure we could find something to fit.

In fact, unable to suppress neither the award-winning economist in me nor a sudden thirst for large amounts of chardonnay, I was fairly quickly able to formulate a condom-based rating system to help me gauge just how poorly my day might be going – starting, as usual, with burned toast.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely require a couple of warm, perfectly buttered slices of toasted bread to get my day off to the right start. They’re kind of like comfy bedroom slippers, if you know what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean, try putting a pat of salted Land O Lakes™ between each of your toes when you wake up. It won’t come close to describing the satisfaction I get from warm toast and tea, but by God I don’t think I should have to be the only person on the planet who has to wash his feet in the morning.

The important thing to remember is this: If I have to start it with accidentally burned toast, I know right away the day most likely is going to hell and I need to immediately issue myself at least a partial condom. Yes, I understand how dangerous partial condoms can be, but at my age it’s not like I’m actually using them for their originally intended purpose. Just think of it as an obscure financial technique to balance accounts. After all, comparatively speaking, burned toast isn’t that bad, right?  Certainly not as bad as, say, having an uninsured car hit by a truck while it was positioned perfectly between the lines in a grocery store parking lot.

I’m not saying that actually happened to me, but I’m not saying it didn’t, either. All I’m saying is that, on my new sliding condom scale, an incident like that would be worth at least six and a half condoms – a full seven if the shock of seeing your late model Chevy in pieces caused you to drop the food and pharmaceuticals you just bought. By the way, you’d be allowed to credit yourself with a quarter condom if among those pharmaceuticals happened to be a bottle of aspirin you could take to help offset the immense suffering obviously awaiting you as the day progresses.

You can begin to see, then, the logic behind my new “Count Your Condoms” life-style rating system. I used to have a “Count Your Blessings” system, but that went to hell along with my day. Here are just a few other mishap milestones to help you gauge just how many prophylactics you ought to be reasonably accumulating as your day deteriorates:

• Your employer approaches you with a demonic smile and asks you to program everything you do into the company’s new AI software.  (21 condoms)
• The folks at HBO discover you’ve been piggy-backing on your neighbor’s account and shut you down just as the killer is about to be revealed.  (2 condoms)
• You’re on your hands and knees planting lilies in a freshly mulched garden and discover that your landscaper brought in a load contaminated with poison ivy.  (7 condoms)

These, of course, are only meant to serve as generalized examples. One of the nice things about my system is that you have the latitude to customize the condom count in accordance with your individualized pain and annoyance levels, as the moment requires. I would, however, recommend also taking into account psychological and emotional factors such as absurdity and irony.

Consider, for instance, this final, and perhaps most disturbing clue that you’re having a bad day:

• You unexpectedly find yourself in need of a condom and don’t have any.

That, I would suggest, calls for at least a dozen.