Quantifiable Living: Kitten-sadness scale

Emotion: Sadness

Units of measure: Kittens

How it works: Levels of sadness can be expressed in units of kitten -- that is, the number of kittens it would take to bring one back up to *LOL* levels of happiness.

A 9-kitten day, then, would be significantly worse than a 3-kitten day, which would be a moderate level of sadness.

A typically happy day may warrant a 0-1 kitten level, with 0 being the absolute lowest the scale can sustain.

Example:
Your bike was stolen: 4 kittens
Your car was stolen: 6 kittens
Your house was stolen: 9 kittens
Your Mom was stolen: varies

Individual happy-day kitten levels may vary, as with human body temperatures; some people may find their days are typically 0 kitten days, while others may rate normal days 1 kitten. Take care to calibrate your own kitten level such that it translates to others.

Multiple kittens should be imagined playing together, thus ratcheting up cuteness and subsequent happiness levels on an almost exponential basis, i.e., the difference between six kittens and four kittens is much greater than the difference between two kittens and four kittens. (Similar to use of the Richter Magnitude Scale.)

Kittens should never be counted in fractions, as the gruesomeness of the image would defeat this scale's purpose. (Half or three quarters of a kitten would make no one *LOL* happy.)

Limits: It is impossible to rate any day a negative-kittens day. (See scales for happiness on how to express emotions beyond *LOL* happiness.)

This scale may be less useful to those who do not like kittens or do not think they are cute.

Elaborations: Events or people may be translated into units of kittens, i.e. "If I had some cotton candy right now, that would be worth 2 kittens" or "Your presence is worth more than 7 kittens to me."

The kittens allotted each positive-value factor may be subtracted from the total of kittens needed to achieve *LOL* level happiness.

Again, there can never be negative kittens, however many excess kittens are provided by positive-value factors on any given day.

Example:
8 kitten day + cotton candy + your presence =
8 kittens + (-2 kittens) + (-7 kittens) = -1 kitten = 0 kitten day