The other day, my husband mentioned we’ve purchased three vehicles in the time he’s had one truck.

He logically explained the math. We sold vehicle number one when the mileage was high. Then we bought vehicle number two. That vehicle was toast when some guy ran a red light and totaled my car. Then we had to purchase another vehicle.

“That makes three,” he said.

Oh, my dear husband.

The answer is “one.”

He might be a certified financial planner, but he doesn’t understand “Dee Math.”

“Dee Math” is named after my mother, Dee Hebert. The term came into my vocabulary a few years ago. She called to say she’d saved $100.

“Wow, Mom, how did you do that?” I asked.

“I bought a comforter for your brother, and it was $300,” she said. “I returned it and bought another one for $200.”

Triumphantly she added – “I saved $100!”

I was quiet for a minute and then I countered her crowing.

“Mom, you spent $200,” I said slowly.

She was quiet for a minute.

“Denise, you don’t understand math. I saved $100,” she said.

Ever since that conversation, my family refers to the method of making numbers work out in your favor as “Dee Math.”

I’ve been using some form of “Dee Math” all my life, mostly because I’m awful with numbers.

Not all numbers give me fits. Without cheating, I know my address, my Social Security number and my drivers license number. That’s about the extent of current numbers I can recall on the spot.

I’ve used one particular credit card for years, but I still have to get the physical card out of my wallet to get the security code, and that’s only three digits.

Every company wants you to enter a password that includes numbers. In these days of hyper security, I don’t understand why a password has to be a hundred digits long.

A line from a song would work wonders as a password. Think how much more fun “This gun’s for hire” or “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah” would be as your passwords instead of the impossible to remember XY17##*jei@@ , but no, they want numbers.

To create a password with numbers I can remember, I have to go back to my childhood home and phone numbers. Those numbers, for some reason, stick.

Not my current home phone number. We still have a land line, but whenever I’m asked for a back-up number, I have to look up “Home” on my phone.

Whenever I use Google Maps, I can remember the street I’m looking for, but not the number. My son and daughter-in-law live in a beautiful home in Houston. I know it’s on Woodway Drive, but I text them every time I go to get the house number.

My son finally put the address in my phone, but I can’t remember how to find it.

I saw a YouTube video about the numbers on a Ross Department Store tag and what those numbers mean. These numbers are important because you can save money if you know how to decipher the code on the tag.

I’ve seen the video three or four times, and I still can’t remember what the numbers mean unless I call that video up on my phone.

Back to the real number of cars I’ve bought.

“We bought the first car because it was time to get another car,” I said calmly. “That’s one. The second car was totaled, so that doesn’t count. The third one is a replacement, not really a car I wanted to buy. So the answer to the number of cars I’ve purchased is one.”

They say math is important, and I agree. If only it wasn’t made up of numbers, then math and I would get along just fine.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.