We Could’ve Had Pi. (Patreon)

I like to imagine, sometimes, the smaller moments in history. These instances we all know about, but we just don’t know the details. Like the Defenestration of Prague: did you know there were three of those? The second one didn’t count, apparently.

But who cares about the act itself. I want to know what the conversation was all about. What series of interactions did these folks have beforehand that led them to come to the conclusion that, “Hey, you know what? Let’s chuck this asshole out of the window!” And everyone just kinda went with it. Three separate times. That just tickles me.

For every important event in history, there’s a series of chats that we’ll never be able to fully appreciate. There are just too many walls, and only so many flies. So, we make them up for ourselves, because it just dun be more funner that way.

For example… Consider a day in the not-too-distant past, when a bunch of stressed out folks were sitting around some enormous Dr. Strangelove table in Geneva.

Dr. Meuller takes off her glasses and massages the bridge of her nose. “So… Ok. What are we going to call this thing?”

Dr. Hernandez turns to page 144 of the binder in front of him. “It looks like… the next one is ‘Nu.’

A few groans around the room. Dr. Smith chimes in. “Nope. It’ll just be a whole ‘Who’s On First?’ thing, and everyone’ll be confused.

Dr. Anagunye turns his head. “What is ‘Who’s On First’”

“It’s this old comedy thing in The States,” Dr. Smith replies. “Who’s on first, What’s on second… It’s baseball, but also, that’s their names, and the other guy is really crazy and is getting really mean about it. I’ll send you the YouTube”

Dr. Anagunye nods slightly, and in a tone not particularly judgemental says, “Americans are very strange people.” Nobody disagrees.

“I mean, can you imagine the memes???” from Chuck, the new intern. He’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and everyone is just kind of sick of him at this point. “Like, it’ll be Nu, which sounds like New! And then everyone is gonna say, ‘it’s the New one, and then, when there’s another one, it’ll be the old one, but everyone will still say that the new one is the new nu, and…” He trails off. Everyone gets the picture, Chuck.

“What’s the next one?” Dr. Mueller again, desperately looking forward to getting a drink.

“Oh, shit, you’re not gonna like this,” Dr. Mueller says, tracing his finger to the next line of the page. “Xi.”

“Nooooo!” Not uttered by one single voice, but more of a din. Even Chuck gets this one. He doesn’t want China to get pissed, just as much as the next guy.

“What’s the next one?”

“Looks like… Omicron.”

“Hmm… Welp! OK.” Followed by a series of “Yeah, why nots” from around the table.

“Alright,” says Dr. Mueller. “Let’s get started on the press releases.”

Everyone mutters in agreement, and begins to gather their belongings.

“Ummm… Guys?” Chuck again, raising a timid finger. Everyone turns to see what’s what with this intern, the one nobody even wanted around, if he wasn’t some senator’s kid.

“Yes. Chuck. What is it.”

“It just sounds… a little Transformers-y, you know? I mean, like… ‘Omicron.’ Like, that’s the name of the bad guy’s spaceship in that horror movie from the ‘60s? Or like… well, it just sounds like the name for, um… well… a deadly plague. But like, one that a bad writer would have just… I dunno… come up with? And then everybody would be like, they wouldn’t buy it…? Like, you know those movies! Right? The low-budget ones they make that ripoff the big blockbusters so they can trick you into accidentally watching that one instead? Like, what’s that old book? The Andromeda Strain? The ‘Omicron Variant’ is like a knockoff? ‘Cause it just sounds… I dunno… bad? But like… Stupid-bad? I just think that everybody’s had such a weird time lately, it might be nice if we didn’t name it something that’s so…” The staring from around the room is beginning to burn a hole into poor Chuck. “Terrifying.”

Everyone is tired. They hate Chuck. They all want him to ‘Go Chuck Himself.’ That’s literally what they say around the office, behind his back. They return to shoving laptops into sleeves.

Poor Chuck. Chuck actually had a good point there. Sadly, they all sort of agree with Chuck. But they didn’t want to give him that point, because, again, they hate Chuck. But maybe if he would have listened for a moment and ditched his pride, Dr. Hernandez would have looked to the next line on the page to discover, “pi.”

Pi. Like the stuff you eat. And at the holidays! And, a number that everyone loves to hate (just like Chuck). And, yeah, a letter in the Greek alphabet. And also… just more of a friendly word? And also, why the hell not, because you just skipped the other two anyway, and what, is anyone concerned about running out of letters, or something? Screw it, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

And chuck would have been super-right — imagine the memes!

We could have called it Pi, is all I’m saying.

I’m on Team Chuck.