I stood there at the deli counter of a convenience store that was something less than a grocery store and more than a gas station. I was waiting for the six-inch-Italian Sub I had ordered. This sub, a true masterpiece in my mind, was stacked with all sorts of vegetable items most average human beings I run into consider unappetizing. Such things as horseradish and pickles, and every kind of pepper from sweet to hot to garden variety, and also lots of onions because, you know, I CAN. And vinegar.
All of the sudden, I become aware of a song playing from some hidden speaker in the ceiling. The woman singing seems very keen on conveying a very brief message to me as she appears to be producing the same five syllables over and over again. Here is a brief record of my dawning comprehension of this message from on-high:
“Any con ded anny wi di, anny wi di, anny wi di.
Andi counta annuda wi-li, anotha wide lie, another white line…�
It became clear to me at this point that the woman, was, in-fact, talking about the experience of driving down a road and counting the broken white line separating the lanes of a multiple-lane highway. The exact lyrics were “And I counted another white line, another white line, another white line…�
After the exact image of what this woman was talking about flittered through my mind, the thought to follow quickly like an angry sparrow chasing a crow was this: “She’s not really counting those lines. Counting sounds like this: ‘One white line, two white lines, three white lines (hah-ah-ah… thank you, The Count).’�
All she was doing was acknowledging the existence of the white lines. Which led me to ponder, which is the more complex mental exercise? Which is more telling of our self-awareness and humanity? Surely animals cannot count. In the development of mathematic skills, humans stand alone. Well, humans and that one horse at the carnival that can tap its hoof to do sums. That pony is amazing. Oh, and computers do math too. And they aren’t human. So how about the ability to acknowledge the existence of the white line; the distinctly human tendency to see the white line on the street, name it for what it is based on color and the geometric concept of ‘line’, and to see in it, the intended meaning that, while this line is a place-marker for correct linear vehicle travel, it also means we can merge over the line so long as we check our blind spot. And surely this woman’s acknowledgement of the white lines had some deeper, poetic meaning as well. Perhaps the concept of the weary distance she had to travel, or of the simple idea of tedium. Which makes her more human, that she can count the lines, or that she can define the lines? Surely a machine could be designed to count lines. However it is doubtful that a machine could be able to see white lines and from them derive new contexts, definitions, and meanings that it was not already programmed to do.
The obvious conclusion I can draw from all this is that, though they both be monsters, The Count (One Flapping Bat! Ha-Ah-Ah!) is more monstrous in his cold, heartless sums than Cookie Monster (Cooookieeeee!) is in his ability to acknowledge the existence of cookies and to derive from them a deeper, more fulfilling meaning.
Oh, and I hasten to remind everyone that cookies are a SOMETIMES food, and that bats, though ugly, perform a vital service in the ecosystem both in their control of the insect pest population and in their guano, which is a tremendous fertilizer without which cookie-bushes would probably be impossible to grow.

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