One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories(12)

I wear one with a pocket, but it doesn’t matter. Bright red is the thing.

Then when you’re done living your life for the day, you just go to this website called Missed Connections and type in red shirt. Don’t put it in quotes, because some people might say “red T shirt” without a hyphen, and some others might spell it t-e-e or some other little variation. There’s no one right way to spell “T-shirt.” Isn’t that interesting? So anyway, just type red shirt. It will take a little bit of extra time, but that way you’ll be sure not to miss anything.

Then you get to see who liked you. More important: who liked you for you. Not you changing your behavior to impress anyone or please anyone. Not you on “date behavior.” Just you being you. And anyone will tell you that’s the whole point. You want to meet someone who likes the same things you do, and who likes you most when you’re most being yourself, so that when you are in a relationship, the person will truly be compatible with the real you.

That’s all you have to do.

It really is that simple.

Now: when someone does contact you, and it seems like it might be a match, should you wear another shirt on the date besides the red T-shirt, so it doesn’t seem like you only have one shirt? Or should you wear the red T-shirt as always, in case the first date doesn’t go well and you want a simple way to check if you caught anyone else’s interest while you were out on the date?

That is a very interesting question, and one that I think about a lot. I will let you know what I do when that comes up.





’Rithmetic





The principal called everyone into the auditorium. Everyone K–8. The teachers and the students. Everyone. Not janitors.

“Everybody, I want you to quiet down and turn off your phones,” he said. People weren’t much quieter. “Nothing I say leaves this room. And if you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it.” They still weren’t totally quiet, but quiet enough for him to start.

“Does anybody hate school?” No one raised a hand, and whispered laughter again bubbled to the surface of the room.

The principal made an angry face, the kind of angry face people don’t fake. “Oh, bullshit! You all hate school!”

Now they were quiet.

The principal walked up to a whiteboard with three words on it.

“They say school teaches three things,” said the principal, pointing with his permanent marker. “Reading, Writing, and ’Rithmetic—short for ‘arithmetic.’ Which is something, of course, that you know from ‘Reading.’ ” He put his Sharpie at the beginning of the third word. “I think the problem,” he said, squeaking a line through it, “is ’Rithmetic.

“What’s the difference between this school and a happy retirement community?”

The room was silent again.

“The difference is ’rithmetic! A retired person living by the ocean, just doing a little reading and writing till the end of their days—that’s the dream, right? ‘What do you do all day?’ ‘Some reading, a little writing.’ Sounds idyllic, right? And yet school sucks. Everybody hates it. What’s the difference? ’Rithmetic! It’s time somebody put their finger on this f*cking obvious thing. And I’m the principal, so I’m that person, and I’m going to abolish it. Now,” he said, looking for a glass of water to sip from and finding none, “now, are you going to be unprepared for some aspects of life? Probably. Yes. But you know what? You will have phones with calculators on them. You will have friends who can do math. My mom, God bless her—I love my mom, and she still doesn’t know whether a third of a cup of flour is bigger than a fourth of a cup. You know what she does? Is anybody here honestly wondering, Oh my God, how the hell does anything get baked?! Of course not, and you’re right not to worry. She asks my dad—he knows. Or these days, you ask Google or whatever you use nowadays; you find out in two seconds. And also, it’s the kind of thing you just pick up. Let’s say you’re working at a restaurant, and they offer you a ten percent raise. You’ll figure out what that means. You will! It’s just too interesting, it’s too relevant, it’s about you and money. You’re not going to let yourself get screwed.

“Now, do I wish you all knew math? Were great at math? Were f*cking mathematicians? Of course! It’d be better. But not much better, listen to me. Not so much better that it’s worth turning eight years of potential heaven—wait, nine? K-one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight, yeah, nine”—he wasn’t, as was becoming clear, much of a math guy—“nine years of heaven of just reading great books and jotting down your thoughts about them—it’s just not worth turning nine years of heaven into nine years of hell. You’ll get to high school, and you’ll be behind in math, fine. But probably not that far—the other schools in this town are shit, let’s be honest.”

Here there was a sound wave of school spirit: “Whooo!”

“So you all get to high school, and, yes, you’re behind in math. But you’re so happy. Listen to me. This is so big-picture important. You’re so good at reading and writing. Okay? You write the most amazing college essay, you ace all your English and history and social studies classes—it’ll all even out. At least even out. Plus,” he said, “plus, you had the best eight years of your life! Childhood! Years you’ll always remember—hell, maybe you’ll even write a book about them—a beautiful one! So I’m just going to do this. I’m the principal. We are, now, a zero-mathematics school. See, you get what that means: zero, none. How did you know what ‘zero’ meant, just now? From your incredible math educations at Clark Street? No. Life. Context clues. See? So: who is ready to make school something that is only about reading and writing—reading fiction and the great true stories of history, and then writing about what’s cool and interesting about them? And also music and art and gym and all that stuff, and math teachers, don’t worry, you’ll keep your jobs, we’ll just put you on other stuff. But mostly, reading and writing. How about it? How about we go for this plan and have the happiest, and most literate, kids in the state—come what may!”