Big news! Someone has now invented a robot that can solve the Rubik’s Cube. 
Before you get too impressed by that, you should know that in 7th grade, I could solve the Cube in under a minute.
Before you get too impressed by that, you should also know that I cheated. I bought a book from Woolworth’s on how to solve Rubik’s Cube.
The book taught a system that made it so easy – and fun. I highly recommend it. Rubik’s Cube is no fun unless you know how to solve it. Otherwise, you just twist it around a bunch till it’s even more hopelessly messy, and give up. We’ve all been there – even the new robot, I’m sure. Seriously, this book will change your life, if you are living in the early 80s.
Once I learned, I was really into it. I figured out — or maybe learned from some other nerd — how to take it apart and grease the inside with Vaseline, in order to increase my speed. I’d bring my pimped-out, slick Rubik’s Cube to school, and gather a crowd as I solved it in record time.
When I say “record time,” I mean my own record. Not the world record.
My personal best was speedy enough to wow my classmates.
It made them all want to be my friend. As you can imagine, my Rubik’s Cube skills made me one of the coolest, most popular people in my grade.
I’m kidding. Did you really imagine that being fast on a petroleum-jelly-greased Rubik’s Cube would make a kid popular, even at the height of the Rubik’s Cube craze? Well, I did. Which is why I brought it to school.
Delusional as that was, I knew enough to pretend I hadn’t brought it to show off. “Oh, I just do it because I find it calming,” I’d say as I aligned the squares into solid blocks without even looking. “But you can watch.”
You know what actually made me popular?
Mastering Donkey Kong, with another book I bought at Woolworth’s. That book paid for itself in popularity.
Kidding again. Hanging out in arcades only made me popular with perverts.
If you’re looking for a useable tip on how to be popular in 7th grade in 1981, here it is:
Get a feathered haircut. The day I came into school with wispy bangs and feathered sides, the two scariest, most popular girls – one of them from the grade above – talked to me. And not to ask me for help with Math.
They said, “We like your haircut” and showed me how to turn my head upside down and flip it back to re-fluff the feathers.
I still played with my Rubik’s Cube at home. It actually was kind of calming.
To this day, I have mixed feelings when I see a tub of Vaseline.
It reminds me of good times with my Rubik’s Cube, but it also reminds me of bad times with a rectal thermometer in my butt. A look that never made anyone popular.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
No, don’t.
What about you? What did you do to be popular? Can you solve a Rubik’s Cube?
Tell me in the comments.
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Laura, Your holiday fears are interesting.
My greatest fear for Halloween is that someone whose doorbell I ring for trick-or-treat, will recognize me.
Love,
Dad
My mother (I mean Santa) gave me an off-label girls’ Rubik’s Cube (the colors were purple, pink and other pastels). Not only was I embarrassed by it, I couldn’t solve it (or pull it apart).
I saved up my money to buy a skinny suede tie from the only cool clothing store in Walla Walla, WA. (That sentence right there should tell you something.) And then I promptly spilled syrup on it. I also tried the feathered hair, but my hair would only part on one side so I only looked cool, in that Shawn Cassidy kind of way, from the left. The other side looked like a boy version of a Farah Fawcett flip. I tried a “Member’s Only” jacket, but I couldn’t afford the real thing, and my “Club Exclusive” only made me popular from a distance. Needless to say, I did not win the election for 9th grade treasurer, which was my last move to popularity Jr. Hi. In high school I gave up and joined the band.
I could only solve it in two minutes, which must have been why I wasn’t as popular. Of course I didn’t know about the Vaseline trick. Probably not the first time a lack of lubrication has kept a person from popularity. Great post. Eddie Braverman turned me onto your site, he thinks were soul sisters.
I try to avoid parties where lubrication is a criterion for popularity.
I’ll have to thank Eddie for sending you this way. I love cupcakes, though I prefer docile ones.
Oh, yeah, the feathered hair flip. That gave me popularity for a while…like 6th through 8th period on May 9, 1985. (Ohio has always been about a year behind NYC fashion-wise.) It was a glorious time. Perhaps my peach grid-print Le Bag also brought a certain something to my 7th grade charm.
There was a girl in my class who “didn’t believe in labels” – a stance she obviously got from her mother, because her only choices were to embrace it or be miserable in her non-designer jeans. Her mother got her a fake le sportsac, and she used a black Sharpie to black out the fake label along the trim.
Taking it apart was the trick up my sleeve!!! Never used vaseline. Was that a tip in your book???
To be popular??? uh, having my mom drop my sisters and I off a couple blocks from the school so no one would see our white “hearse” looking car prevented me from sliding down the popularity pole even more (oh wait, I may have been near the bottom since heights make me woozy!!!)
Oh, and I joined the PEP SQUAD
Pep squad is a whole other realm. I’m glad we didn’t have that option, because there’s no way I could have done it. I can barely bring myself to yell “whoo!” at any event.
Wow, i think i had that same rubiks cube book. As far as being popular. pfff, i was the kid that ate alone at lunch everyday. I’m not scarred form it though. Really, i’m not.
How could you have eaten alone at lunch when you knew how to solve Rubik’s Cube? You must have been hiding your skill.
We would have been very good friends.
Also, I love you. Too soon? Deal with it.
We would have. Let’s make up for lost time now and go rollerskating together up and down the block outside my building!
I love you too. I’m afraid of these feelings!
I’m 80’s impressed with you! I could never get “the cube” although I think I remember a few knock offs — the ball, and the snake — were a bit easier. I remember doing well on another puzzle type game — you had to push the plunger down, set the timer, put the pieces in place — you couldn’t be slow because, perfection, you had to move on fast, move on fast — before the pieces poppped up before you put in the last. And that’s…ahhh, who remember the names of those silly games.
I used to think in eighth grade (1984) that “cool” (aka fresh, mint) was having a black members-only jacket and longish hair with a part down the middle — winged back on the sides (think Shaun Cassidy). These days I know it’s wearing my pants really high.
Paul, you weren’t wrong. In 1984, middle-parted winged hair was totally mint. It must have been, because I had a crush on a guy with that hair, and I have totally mint taste.
As for your current high pants style, I am Seinfeld-impressed.
I used to just pull it apart and put it back together solved – just like magic! That thing still completely baffles me…
Less fun to do that when the inside is coated in dirty vaseline.
I think I was so nerdy that I did not really get that there were popular kids at all. Except for Phillip and Miranda, who were popular only because everyone thought they were having sex. Yes, in middle school. To look cool, I spent my babysitting money on army fatigues and then, later, a niiiiice black satin jacket. A benefit of living in suburbia: if my kids want to buy clothes with their own money, I still have to take them to the store, where I can make sure they don’t waste it on ugly crap.
Did you get your army fatigues at Canal Jeans? Or Antique Boutique? That’s where you shopped if you were popular. And you got a little pin to wear alongside your Betty Boop pin (from Pandemonium).
How was I popular? I was nice to people. (I think.)
The ultimate climax of my popularity was in 8th grade when the school had a contest called Mr. and Mrs. Irresistible for the boy and girl who could collect the most “Mr. Irresistible” badges (which were just made of paper and a safety pin and were different colors for boys and girls. Blue and pink of course.) Everyone got one badge at the beginning of the day and who ever had the most badges of the opposite sex would be crowned Mr. or Mrs. Irresistible during the school assembly at the end of the day.
I started to collect a few from some girls who were friends. Then they went on a campaign for me. As soon as girls saw that I had momentum, they started handing over their badges (of course I had to have them pinned all over me, so it started to get a little obvious.)
The kicker was that my bully (Oscar Ortega – I can’t believe I still remember his name) also started gathering badges from the ‘other’ crowd, and it was looking like we were really close, until the final count at the very end where I came out victorious!
He could still beat me up (or threaten me) but I was more loved, or popular, or ‘irresistible’ and that meant so much more to me.
Actually, I don’t think he picked on me much after that, because he knew I had friends (a lot). That is real power.
And I think it’s still true today, friends = power.
Thanks Laura, for taking me down memory lane. I think I didn’t solve the rubik’s cube until college, when a friend showed me the secret.
I vote for Oscar Ortega as “Mr. Dickhead.” I’m glad he only won Mr. Not-Quite-As-Irresistible. Your win must have come at the age where girls find nice guys irresistible. When they’re a little older, they wise up and go for the a-holes like Oscar Ortega.
In 6th grade I went to a public school in the heart of NYC’s Chinatown. I was the only Black kid.
Well, not the only. There were 5 other chocolate youngsters in the school, but two of them were my brother and sister.
So, I was popular by default. And an outcast, all at the same time.
Chocolate Youngsters! That sounds like a great idea for either a band, or a specialized Gymboree-type place.
I didn’t realize you were a NYC downtown native. (Do not take “native” as a reference to your chocolateness. I’m un-pc but not that un-pc.)
Are you the Queen of Kong?
I watched a movie once, called King of Kong. But only one of the dudes was a pervert, maybe. Or maybe not. But he was mean.
I am the Queen of Kong, and I am a mean pervert.
Gah! Nostalgia attack. I had the very same book!
My best time was just over a minute. It won me a contest once, which involved about 20 nerds sitting on a stage, after a speech contest or something, spinning cubes. When I stuck my hand in the air and realized I was the first one, I was king of the world. The photo of my prize acceptance remains at the top of the list of worst, all-time-most-embarrassing photos of me.
I guess I can only be glad you weren’t in the same contest.
You did not! Wow, you might be my nerd mate. Where is that photo? It sounds like a keeper.
How lucky that this post arrived just as Allie is about to start 7th grade! I’ll be sure to share the dos and don’ts with her – and in fact she is getting her hair cut next week and plans to add in a few layers…So helpful, since I sure as hell don’t have any useful advice for her!
She is not about to start 7th grade. Didn’t you just have her, like, last year? And here she is, already adding layers to her hair. God, I feel old. Anyway, here’s some more useful advice: wear sandals with socks to school. Always a hit!
Ha ha, this made me laugh.
I could vibrate my teeth and sing to sound like a kazoo. Actually, I still can. But, I’d rather not (unless I have a few drinks in), thank you.
Ah, if only life were so simple again.
That is one of the best party tricks I ever heard of. I’ll believe it when I see/hear it, though. If it’s true, that should keep you popular (and in free drinks) for life.
Shit, I remember Woolworth’s. Used to spend my Saturdays there with my mom. Ah, memories. Okay, back to what I meant to tell you. I was extremely interested in being popular in 6th grade. How did I do it? I bought a book from the Scholastic Book Club. Just like you, I used books to get what I wanted…and it worked. I, along with Mark, my first boyfriend were voted the most popular couple that year. Oh, and I had that rockin’ feather haircut too. Maybe that is what did it. Great post, Belgray!
Just one book? I thought you had to have the whole Sweet Valley High series to be popular. Guess it’s easier than I thought! Thanks, Lisa.
heh i read all the sweet valley high books… they most certainly did not make me popular!