red cars

Every Christmas (yes, the holiday posts are coming up, readers!), I receive one small piece of snail mail addressed to me, 14052 Ladue Rd., Chesterfield, MO 63017, US of A, Earth, the universe. It is from my middle school gifted and talented teacher, Tim Cerutti, inviting me to his annual open house where we shoot the breeze with his family and generations of pupils. I haven’t missed an open house in eight years.

There are a lot of reasons why kids like Mr. Cerutti. On his desk, next to the ever-present can of caffeine-free Coca-Cola stands a candy jar full of Tootsie Rolls to be awarded to children who said something smart, funny, or just plain cool. He teases his students but teases himself more, assuring us we would grow up to surpass him in success, wealth, good looks, and brains. “I teach the gifted, I’m not a gifted teacher” remains one of his favorite jokes to this day, though we would beg to differ.

Some topics we covered in his class:
1) How losing at Tic-Tac-Toe is impossible unless you’re an idiot
2) Animal Farm
3) How to build tiny, tiny civilizations, bury them, and then dig them up
4) Dead Poet’s Society
5) Zach Hyatt (seriously, he was discussed a lot)

And much, much more. Though he doesn’t know it, his most memorable lesson to me is about red cars.

I am in high school, and it’s Faculty and Student Trivia Night. Needless to say, I am pretty damn stoked. It’s not faculty vs. students, it’s pick a faculty member to be on your team, and who better to choose but my ex-teacher-of-the-gifted-but-not-gifted-teacher Tim Cerutti? We’re sure to win. He sits down, introduces his wife (spouses are allowed to play too), and seeing his big toothy grin that re-wrinkles his many wrinkles, I know we’re money.

“What was the most popular color for cars purchased in 2000?” asks Chris Ottolino, head of the academic trivia team and emcee of the night. Our table huddles close to discuss. “Red,” one kid whisper-shouts. “Yeah, red,” we all agree, bobbing our heads up and down. We look to Mr. Cerutti for the final say.

“Actually, I don’t know, I think it might be white,” chirps Mrs. Cerutti. We shoot each other “wtf” glances. It’s definitely not white; we all know it.
“They say you see three white cars for every red one,” she continues.

Who does this woman think she is, wife of teacher-of-the-gifted-but-not-gifted-teacher? Who is “they”? She’s so wrong, everyone knows she’s wrong, wrong wrong wrong! Every other team is going to get red because the answer is obvious; we can’t put down white and risk looking like dumbasses. But out of respect, we still look to Mr. Cerutti for what to write down, because after all, maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s a trick question only the sage and wise would know; it did seem too easy.

“Let’s go with white.”

The man says white; we’ll go with white, because he is a great man. The answer is read, and it’s red. 6 out of 7 teams replied correctly. We are livid inside. Mr. Cerutti rubs his wife’s back and lightly proclaims, “You know, they really do say you see three white cars for every red one.”

I knew he knew the answer was red, and I felt a little bit cheated. This was our leader, who had taught us the right answers all throughout school, and to throw that out the window to appease a woman…I was jealous. Jealous that he had chosen his wife over his students, over those that worshiped him, were loyal to him. Jealous he had a life outside of Parkway Central, that we might not be his first priority.

My parents would have argued. They once had a huge blowout about whether skim milk had the baby blue or pink cap in the supermarket. There’s no way in hell my mother would have surrendered to white, let me tell you.

So I guess I feel lucky, because someone once taught me that though red cars may be the correct answer–once in awhile, when you really, reaaaally like a girl, you swing with the white.