Page 121 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Oh my god, you suck!” She hits my shoulder with her clutch.

“It’s not brilliant.”

She’s shaking her head. “But hey, if you hate the idea of a perfectly decent data model, you could aways borrow my sculptural zero to present to the people. What do you think Wulfric would say to that? That would be bold and disruptive. Can you imagine his face?”

I snort. “Wulfric would not be amused.”

“You could bring it out in a box and unveil it with a flourish,” she says. “I present to you, Wulfric”—she raises her hands in a theatrical gesture—“the boldest and most brilliant data model you’ve ever seen. I give you…a zero—made entirely from garbage.”

“Very funny.”

“If you really wanted to be disruptive,” she continues, “I’d go with something that has a performance aspect. Imagine this—you unveil a cutting board, a knife, and a pineapple.”

“Jesus.”

She grins. “You wanted bold and disruptive.”

I sigh and lean back in the seat.

“Poor grumpy-stuff,” she says. “Maybe you’ll actually have fun. Partiescanbe fun.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Sometimes they are,” she says. “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

“Not necessarily. Considering leap seconds.”

“Leap seconds?” She pulls back. “Did you make that up? You made that up.”

“I didn’t make it up. Earth’s days aren’t all exactly the same length. Leap seconds get inserted now and then to compensate for the earth’s uneven rotation.”

“What? Days aren’t all the same length?”

“They’re not,” I say. “They add and subtract seconds here and there to even things out.”

“Somebody’s been adding and subtracting random seconds to time? Does this person live in a giant cuckoo clock?”

“Hardly.” I grab a water. “This person works at the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.”

She furrows her brows. “I don’t know what I’m more amazed by: that there’s an actual place with that name, or the fact that somebody’s been inserting seconds without people knowing it.”

“So as you see, stopped clocks can be right only once a day.”

“I’m still going to say it the old way,” she announces. “It’s the spirit of the saying that’s important.”

“But wouldn’t you want to get it right? Now that you know the correct way to say it?”

“No, because saying, ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day’ is way better than, ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day if you ignore the presence of leap seconds, which are used to compensate for the earth’s uneven rotation.’ Do you want to know why?”

I smooth my thumb over her cheek. “I think you’re being a smartass.”

She grins. “I’ll tell you why: because I’m not a fucking nerd.”

“The second way is better. It’s objectively better.”

“But it’snotbetter,” she says.

“It is better, because you should want to be accurate,” I say. “You’d have to change it to, ‘a stopped clock is sometimes right twice a day.’”

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