Who Wants To Hear A Funny Story?

Ok, so while working on my program, i was trying to integrate inventory control with job ordering. i finally got it to work, but encountered a 2hr speedbump along the way. here's what happened:

i had 2 numbers: varQuantity and varStock (quantity being the amount to be ordered, stock being the amount in stock). i wanted code to run telling the orderer that we didn't have enough in stock if varQuantity > varStock. so, after entering test data (100 for stock, 200 for quantity) to see if the code would run, it didn't. going back through, i tried to see if i did something wrong, entered a > or < sign backwards, whatever. nothing.

If varQuantity > varStock Then
do this
else
do this
end if

it totally skipped this bit of code. i placed msgboxes between the steps to see where the problem was occurring, and only the boxes before and after the code functioned. i then placed a msgbox directly before the If statement with this prompt:

msgbox "varQuantity > varStock =" & varQuantity > varStock

the response? varQuantity > varStock = False. ooookkkkaaayyyy.... tried this:

msgbox varQuantity & ">" & varstock & "=" & varQuantity > varStock

guess what i got? you'll laugh. 200 > 100 = False. Now tell me what i'm supposed to do when my computer can't tell when 1 number is bigger than another? i tried different test data, i made sure that my fields were of the same data type, etc. nothing. how do i proceed?

well, the solution i came across worked, but i'd like to know why. varStock = varStock * 1. why does this work? maybe i'll never know. Stupid computers.