Why the Rubik's Cube Ruined My Self-Esteem - The 80's #2

 It had 54 smug square stickers. It looked like a Borg flagship named "Flamboyance." 

But it wasn't a simple cube. Or a Rubik, whatever the heck that is.

Well, it was. But it was more along the line of a little grinning plastic psychopath that broke the will of every kid who once thought they were good at puzzles.

In case you missed it, imagine someone you love and trust handing you a block full of colourful, demonic, smaller blocks and saying, "Here, go twist this until it's perfect."

So you do. For hours. Days.

Entire geologic epochs.

Until one day, the gift-giver finds you sitting in the middle of your bedroom floor, cross-legged, unwashed, surrounded by a circle of half-eaten Twinkies and muttering, "red to left, blue white up, yellow always right, right never green, orange beats itself, and where in the world is Carmen San Diego."

It wasn't Twister in a twister... EF2 or otherwise.

It was you, following the cult of Rubik, but spiralling and starting to lose faith. And the cubic jerk stared back at you and whispered:

"You shall never know peace."

Rubik's Cube was marketed as "A Fun Challenge." 

That's almost as cute as selling a hurricane as "A Refreshing Breeze."

Teachers handed them out to students who were considered gifted. In hindsight... like, totally rude. Nothing says people appreciate your untapped potential like giving you a toy that's been specifically engineered to expose your limitations.

Each kid had their own strategy. Mine was something I like to call: "Aye, a yeetin' against the wall for you, laddie" as I threw it. 

Against a wall. I thought that was obvious.  

Although, I'll admit to not knowing why it was all done in a Scottish accent. Madness knows no borders, people!

I'm not alone. I've heard the rumors of entire asylum wards full of what doctors call "Cube Flashback Dummies", mannequins that take savage beatings at the hands of frustrated crazies who've been trying to solve the cube since 1986.

Another skilled approach involved twisting the little booger with such malicious intent that it either gave up and solved itself or spontaneously combusted. Either was considered a win.

But neither ever happened.

Children Who Could Solve It Were Instant Celebrities

Suddenly famous, they'd casually walk through the corridors, clicking away at combinations like cube savants. One kid I knew could solve it in the dark, or behind his back. He's probably able to make sense of IKEA instructions now. 

Show-off.

So I did what any reasonable child resorted to: 

I peeled off the stickers and faked solving the deranged square by rearranging them in perfect order.

Except when you're 11, you haven't really developed a perfect sense of level, so the Cube never really looked right again.

It practically screamed fraudulence.

Plus, any attempt to re-align it resulted in catastrophic glue failure.

And if you're someone who lived through the Cube Craze and claims to have never even been tempted to do this, I urge you to take a deep breath and reflect on your relationship with Mr. Honesty.

The majority of us, at one point or another, turned our cubes into colourful sticky paperweights.

Decades later, I think about buying one again. I'd sit it on a shelf above my laptop, unsolved and defiant. Goading me to be better at anything I try. A bright cubic nemesis.

A reminder that not everything in life gets a tidy solution... some things no solution at all. Some mysteries stick around, wobble a bit after repeated attempts to solve them, and slap me with the reality that perfection isn't an option.

But, I could always peel the stickers again. It's tradition.