Greg hated math. He wasn't good at it, didn't understand it, nor did he care to. In Greg's mind, his Algebra 1 class was inconsequential to his future and whatever that future may or may not hold. Greg wasn't interested in much of anything, if the truth were to be known.

Girls, sports, cars; all of the things a 16-year old should be focused on were non-existent for Greg.His mother described him as being "wild with apathy" toward life.

But there was one thing that held Greg spellbound. It controlled his every move, thought and emotion. Even the sound of its crinkling, ripping, unfolding and even shredding caused him to salivate like a starving predator closing in on its prey...

The bell rang and algebra class had begun. The instructor asked the students to hand-in their homework. Greg's was half-finished, and what was completed was wrong, wrong, wrong.The instructor walked through the aisles of desks, collecting each student's homework. When it was Greg's turn, he ripped the page from his spiral notebook, but the sound of the paper ripping free from its metal coil was too much.Rather than handing his homework to the instructor, Greg jammed it in his mouth and began to chew with ecstatic gusto.

"Sorry," Greg said as he gulped this delicacy called paper. "I ate my homework."