2025-10-16
As part of an online interview, I was asked for a moment which shaped how I see the world.
As a toddler, I knew my letters early. There's a fair argument to be made that my 'genius' peaked before I was out of diapers.
My father was a different sort of genius, a gambler, a point of view which reshapes the entire world into games of chance.
He boasted often about his 'brilliant' child to his friends.
One of those poker buddies was around just often enough to know my Achilles heel, er tongue: While I knew my letters well, I could not yet pronounce all of them.
Armed with this knowledge of the fatal flaw in my youthful elocution, he bet my father that I could not say letters picked from my alphabet blocks.
The bet was quickly accepted, with my father assuming his 'gifted child' would soon be paying the bills.
And so, I was handed a first block... "B"
Then another... "S"
Then the scheme was put into action.
My father's friend handed over the dreaded backflip of verbal gymnastics which is the twenty-third letter of the English alphabet.
I took the letter, and stared at it for a long moment.
Then I turned it upside down and said, "M".
My father won a bet, and I learned that games can be played in many ways.