Judith Perl’s “Archimedes 3”

Today I am home ill. So I am resting on the couch, noodling on the computer.

My husband is also home, because he is the stay-at-home parent in our marriage. He was quietly shifting things around when he exclaimed:

“εύρηκα!”

Since I don’t speak Greek, it sounded to me like “Hey you row ick a.” On the other hand, I am sufficiently educated that I knew what he meant, and that it was the authentic pronunciation for the word Americans know as eureka.

My husband was happy because he’d found our Wii, gone missing after a trip to visit relatives during spring break.

I was happy because I am married to the kind of man who will exclaim in greek, and then patiently explain the history of the word, along with the fun story of Archimedes shouting “εύρηκα!, εύρηκα!” as he ran, naked, through the streets of Syracuse after realizing that he could use displacement to solve the question of whether the king’s crown was made of pure gold (it wasn’t).

There are moments when you realize life is sweet. This was one of those moments.