My husband is —was — a math whiz. Dementia overloaded his brain more than ten years ago, but every now and then, it reboots.

This puzzle showed up on-line a few days ago.  If you can solve this, you are a genius, it read. I showed it to Peter. “I’ll bet you can do it,” I said, “and you know I can’t!” I added. He laughed. He knows how absolutely hopeless I am at math. I left him to it, pencil in hand.

Within minutes he was done. When he tried to explain how he’d arrived at the correct answer, he lost me, not only because numbers muddle my brain as if it’s being whirled in a blender, but also because he can barely put sentences together any more.

I’d copied the two possible ways to solve it, but I didn’t even understand how to apply either solution. Here’s what Peter did:

You are a genius!

Interestingly, he keeps a scrap of paper by his chair that shows the way he figures out how old he is. I’m not smart enough to understand that either. First, he looks at the newspaper to see what year it is: next to 2017 he writes 17 and underneath, 62; to the left, 1938. Simple subtraction, 2017 minus 1938 should tell him he’ll be 79 this month. (Even I can manage that!) But then he adds 17 and 62 to get 79, too. See, I don’t get that at all, but he does and that’s all that matters.

There are probably several geniuses among my followers who can solve the “genius” problem. I am in awe of you. But I’m more in awe of my husband who did it so quickly, yet he can’t remember where the dog’s leash is kept, where the salt and pepper live, nor how old he is.

Headline quote: Tara Sivec, USA Today best-selling author, Seduction and Snacks.
Header photo: Performance  Brain Training

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.