Rubik's Cube.

Someone just walked into the office and picked up my Rubik's cube, looking at it intently, looking determined.

"You're not a Rubik's cube whiz, are you?"
"Yeah, I gotta solve it now that I saw it."
"Yessss!"

Ever since I dug my Rubik's cube out of my closet at home, I've hoped that someone would come into the office knowing how to solve it quickly (I never learned how to do it myself). Statistically, I figured that if I left it up there for a year or so, sooner or later someone would come along who knew how to do it.

She spent the next five minutes or so looking at all the sides, then rapidly flipping columns and rows, then reassessing. Very mathematical, very precise.



"It's an old one," she said, as she struggled to push a few of the turns through.

After she was all done solving it properly, she placed it carefully back on the counter. Then, reconsidering, she picked it up again and did a few turns, leaving it so that each different side had one color in the middle tile and another color around the border. The whole encounter took all of five minutes, and then she briskly walked out as I yelled "Thanks!" after her.