Punked by the cube

I recently had guests over for supper and did the rubic cube for a kid as a party trick.

That night when everyone had gone I sat in front of the TV with my cube.

Over the past few months, I had reached the stage where I could almost do the cube with my eyes closed.

That night I must have missed a step because the last level remained scrambled.

My immediate reaction was to scramble and redo and inexplicably I failed again.

I got increasingly frantic after every failed attempt and each time I came back to a single corner that would not sit straight.

Finally, it came to me that someone had forced one piece the wrong way.

I hadn't even known that such a thing was even possible.

Having turned the piece around it all fell into place and I could do the cube again in under 100 seconds.

(no speed cube record) good time for me.

Then I realized that it was a lesson I needed to learn.

Hubris is a bad thing.

M Parak

July 2019