Sandals and Sneakers

I was always a smart kid. But, I had my own way of thinking of things. It’s like I would take the original thing someone had given me and twist it into this weird, deformed thing with an extra dimension.

To me, life wasn’t something that was open for changing. It was something that was open for improving.

It never really improved things, though. I don’t think I ever reached my “desired results”. I tried to multitask, or make this giant goal that I wasn’t really thinking about how achievable it actually was.

To me, boring was my enemy.

In second grade, we had a math quiz. I think it was around the beginning of the year. I have always loved math, and numbers seemed vast and magical to me even though they had seemed dull and full of infinite boringness to other kids. 

Anyway, I was never the most logical kid (In fact, I'm still not). I was great at the number kind of math, but no. This was my mortal enemy- this was a logic quiz. I remember trying to find my own way around each of the questions. We were “warned” about this quiz a couple days before. I wasn’t freaking out; math was my strong suit.

Of course when the test did come... well, that was where I freaked out.

It wasn't until the 5th question that I thought I could handle it. It seemed so perfectly easy! The teacher said we could really let loose with logic questions; think a little more about the words, not the math. I stared down at the problem with a gleam in my eye. I would defeat this thang.

Janie is new to her school. 80% of the students in her grade wear sneakers to school and 20% wear sandals. What do you think is the kind of footwear Janie is most likely to wear?

Easy, I thought. I took my stub of a pencil in my excuse for a hand covered in apple juice stains and dirt, and started writing in that awful second-grader handwriting of mine: Janie will most likely wear sandals, because she is new and probably doesn't know what the other students like to wear on their feet.

My second grade teacher still keeps in touch with my mom, and to this day, they still laugh about it.

*sigh*.