It probably isn’t a coincidence that three is my personal sweet spot, according to Kurt Carlson, a marketing researcher at the College of William & Mary’s Raymond A. Mason School of Business. As far as I can tell, he’s the only person who has done significant research into why and how human brains sort things into groupings of three. “People believe they’re observing something special when they see the third instance of it happen,” he explains.

The Chicago Sun-Times' wandering Newshen Glenna Syse spent 39 minutes with Author James Thurber, left with the conviction that he is "the funniest man alive." In an epigrammatic mood, Thurber ranged free and easy over—by count—39 subjects. Glenna's sampling included a Thurberism on age: "I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were 15 months in every year, I'd only be 48.* That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40." On the forthcoming election: "It's accusation time in Normalcy. And in spite of the nominations, my mother is voting for Lindbergh." On martinis: "One is all right, two is too many, three is not enough."