6,991,376,479

According to the U.S. & World Population Clock, today's title is how many people are sharing the Earth with me at this moment. I expect I'm included, so I suppose it's more accurate to say 6,991,376,478. Although it's also likely more than one child has been born in the three minutes or so since I started this post. At any rate, I'm in the ballpark since the clock does say (Est + 5). My point is, that is a very large number. And I am personally acquainted with a tiny percentage of that very large number. So why does it regularly surprise me that given there are only 365 possible birth dates, 366 this year as it's leap year, that I know several people who share the same birthday? Today, January 31st, is the birthday of four people I know. My father, my cousin Kris, my Darling DIL's friend Catherine, and my ex's older brother. The interesting thing is that my Uncle Ken's birthday, Kris's father, is tomorrow, February 1st. Now consider the post-divorce rancor my mother held toward my father. So she mentioned to her brother that it would have been nice if Louise, his wife, could have waited to give birth for a few more hours so Kris would share his birthday with his dad instead of her former husband. Ken smiled and said that in the moment, he wasn't about to bring up the subject of prolonging the birth process with his wife. My Uncle Ken was a smart man.