He’s standing at the chalkboard, sweat beading on his forehead and gathering into little streams as he stares at the equation in silence.
He swallows. Furrows his brow. His concentration is deeper than the ocean.
And then: enlightenment.
“Aha!”
He puts chalk to the green board and starts writing. A number next to a number. A letter here, a symbol there. Suddenly he’s in the bottom-right corner.
He’s run out of board.
But he’s not done.
Not even close.
He straightens up, looks from the beginning to the end, wipes the whole thing clean, and keeps going in a fresh burst of inspiration.
Again, he fills the board.
Again, he wipes it clean.
Then he picks up exactly where he left off.
Somewhere around the middle of the board, he finally writes the answer, underlines it twice, and throws his arms up in triumph.
The teacher watches him without saying a word.
The room goes quiet.
Somewhere, a fly buzzes.
The triumphant grin slowly starts to disappear.
We glance at one another, and those of us who understand roughly as much math as he does wait to see what happens next.
Then the old man bursts out laughing.
“The answer might be right,” he says, “but not on planet Earth.”
He pauses.
“You’re cooked, Ribafish.”
* * *
That was thirty-five years ago.
My classmate passed the year.
I, meanwhile, soon designed our class T-shirt—drawn in ink on tracing paper and flipped in reverse, because that’s how we did things back then.
Since then, I’ve designed plenty of T-shirts for different organizations. Packaging, too. And even an online store for an actual clothing brand.
What I never seriously considered was starting one of my own.
Until I did.
And when I started thinking about the name, Ribafish came back almost immediately.
That classroom scene replayed in my head, and suddenly it made perfect sense.
At least half the name is understood almost anywhere in the world.
The other half?
Well, that’s where things get interesting.
Ribafish became a line of clean, comfortable clothing with a twist: funny characters, smart one-liners, and designs that don’t need to shout to get noticed.
Made for people who like to swim against the current.
And apparently, some jokes need thirty-five years to become a brand.