It has been, I think, sixteen or seventeen years since my last tattoo. I know my wife was with me; I’m less certain that we were actually married at the time. And while you very well might be looking at that and wondering what the hell I was thinking, I’ve been thinking about this exact design for my next tattoo (that’s my right wrist) for most of that time, and only just now decided to pull the trigger on it.

It is, oh, I dunno, sometime during the first Obama administration, and I am at a training with a bunch of other teachers from my school, none of whom are math teachers. We are presented with three pieces of construction paper, held together in the center by a brass paper fastener, in this shape: a large square, with a circle inscribed in the square, and a second square inscribed inside the circle.

“Figure out what the ratio of the inner square to the outer square is,” they tell us. “You can do whatever you like to come up with the answer.”

My entire group looks at me.

Sigh. Okay, fine, I’ll math this shit. To be entirely honest, I do not, at this time, remember exactly how I got the answer, but there was a lot of Pythagoras involved, and I think at least one place where I solved a set of equations with two variables. It took a few minutes. I’ve considered reconstructing the math, but I think the story is kind of better if I don’t. The ratio is 1:2. In other words, the outer square is twice the size of the inner square.

Anyway, they give us a few minutes, and then ask if anyone wants to share their answer. My group volunteers me to explain my answer, having heard my explanation and apparently accepting none of it. So I attempt to explain my logic to this group, again, none of whom are math people. It takes a few minutes and I may have killed at least one of them. The presenters, now with wide grins on their faces, because they are a step ahead of me and I have walked into their trap, ask if anyone else solved the problem in a different way. A large man on the other side of the room raises his hand. They call on him. He looks like a not-insignificant portion of the people who know him call him Coach, possibly including people he has never actually coached.

He asks if he can use their prop. They say yes, and their grins get larger.

He demonstrates a solution in about a second, by rotating the inner square exactly forty-five degrees to the left.

“S’ half,” he says, and sits the fuck back down.

I start swearing. There’s a moment of disbelief and then the whole room, including me, starts laughing.

Perhaps you have trouble picturing what he’s done. Let me draw this real quick:

I think it is probably immediately clear to everyone looking at this, with the inner square rotated, that the inner square is half of the outer square.

A few days later, I found a second construction-paper shape similar to this one in my classroom, also held together by a brass paper fastener. I kept it in my classroom for years. I don’t think I have it any longer, but I had it for a really long time, across multiple classrooms in multiple schools.

This tattoo is my permanent reminder that sometimes shit does not have to be complicated, which is something I have been fairly accused of in my life, more than once.