I've always been pretty good at math.
Usually, I would be able to figure out a math problem on my own, but occasionally, I'd run into some difficulty as most people do. I'd confer with friends, but sometimes they wouldn't know how to solve it either. So those few times, I'd go to Daddy for help. And he would ALWAYS manage to solve the problem, but also manage to be completely unhelpful at the same time.
And no, I'm not contradicting myself.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I was in Algebra II. There was a particularly hard math problem, and I asked Daddy for help. He looked at it and solved it within a couple of minutes. But I didn't understand anything he was doing. And the reason for this is because he used trigonometry to solve it 🤦🏽♂️.
I told him if I turned it in, I wouldn't get credit it for it, but he said he solved it the only way he knew. So I turned it in, told my Algebra II teacher I couldn't solve it but my dad helped me. She looked at it and said the work was correct, but she couldn't accept it since it was solved using trigonometry. Understood.
Fast forward one year. I was in Trigonometry with the exact same teacher. I once again ran into a problem I couldn't solve. None of my friends could help, so I again asked Daddy. And once again, Daddy solved it within a couple of minutes.
And once again, I didn't understand anything he was doing. It was because this time he used calculus to solve it. I was seriously like what the hell.
I told him this SAME THING happened last year, and I wouldn't get any credit for it. And not to sound like a broken record, but he once again said this was the only way he knew how to solve it. He then laughed and with a half-smile/half-smirk said:
"You know, I haven't done calculus in almost 30 years."
Yeah, Daddy, I know you could be annoyingly smart. He then went on about how he didn't have calculators back in the day but used a slide rule, yada yada yada. I didn't get credit as I expected, but I told my teacher what happened again and she laughed.
I consider myself a smart individual, but Daddy was on a whole different level. And I respected the hell out of him. Daddy told me once I was one of the few people who he considered to be on the same level of intelligence as him. And even though I think he was full of crap, Daddy would never do anything to make me feel stupid, and the confidence he instilled in me is just one other reason I miss that man so damn much.