The Saga of Mister Stick Man

Recently I read the book From One to Zero, a history of numeration. It traces the broad panorama of the many different systems people had for counting and writing down numbers, from the earliest systems of cutting notches in sticks through abacuses, Chinese counting boards, and finally the grand achievement of place value. All through the book, the fact that we use a base-ten numbering system because we have ten fingers is made abundantly clear. So I stuck a PostIt note up next to the cartoon:

Note that MISTER STICK MAN(tm) uses base-six arithmetic!

Later, Heather was in my office, in a cranky mood which is usual for Heather. She saw my note and followed with one of her own:

screw him. i use base sixty

Typical nasty cranky ol' Heather comment. Shortly thereafter, the following note appeared, written in a shaky, childish scrawl:

YOU SUCK - Mister Stick Man(tm)

...with a self portrait of MISTER STICK MAN(tm) giving her the finger (one of his six).