It has vexed me since I was a little child: the Rubik’s Cube. That multi-colored block that lets you shift pieces around in a vain attempt to get all the same colors back where they belong. The toy maker claims the cube can be scrambled in 43 quintillion different patterns. (I think they made the word “quintillion” up, but anyway, it’s a lot.) As a kid, I think I tried all quintillion combinations, including busting the bugger up and putting it back together correctly. Or peeling the stickers off and reapplying them in the correct order. I failed even at those. The little toy haunted me. It seemed so easy, so simple — like there must be a right way to do it. Screaming, pulling all the hair out of the right side of my head and throwing it as far as I could into the neighbor’s yard never worked. (Maybe I needed to do that 7 quintillion times?) Which is why I was so amazed when we visited one of our college friends over the Christmas break. Her 10-year-old son, Lucas, has not only mastered it, but goes to tournaments to compete with his super-fancy, ultra-spinny cube that dances in your fingers and says things like, “Sooie, you got this, baby!!!”