I am not good at everything. That pained me a little to type. I kid; I'm fully aware that I have my many shortcomings, and I find it helpful to acknowledge those things every now and again. It keeps me in check and enables Smitty to live with me without killing me in my sleep. I wanted to try to use the word "agog" in this blog somehow, because "egg nog" popped into my head earlier, which, by the way, is disgusting. There is no amount of rum on earth that would make it palatable. It tastes like what I imagine fingernail polish remover to taste like, only with milk added. I worked at a really weird place one time where they were freaking psychos about egg nog. They thought I was the strange one for not drinking it, and they had flavors I didn't know existed. I mean, pickle-flavored egg nog is really just going too far.
I digress; Smitty just helpfully started the ball rolling by saying these are things at which I do not excel: standing up without falling over, walking without falling over, operating appliances, and knowing when to shut my mouth.
The first two are really basically the same thing, and I'm not sure when coordination left me. I took tap, ballet, and gymnastics for about 7 years when I was younger, I played tennis..very well, I might add, and was generally very good about not falling over or tripping. Yet now, I can fall into a hole in the yard and tear important parts of my leg, trip over the carpet, walk into the door jamb, trip over a handicapped ramp, breaking my shoe and my ankle, and the list goes on and on, and I have no good reason for it. But I do have a number of bruises, a sassy boot, and an ankle brace.
This charge of not being able to operate appliances. I can only assume he's referring to how once I put a plastic Pyrex lid in the oven, and it caught on fire. I swear I read "oven safe," but once it melted, I couldn't prove my point. Also, I have a tendency to hit random buttons on the remote controls that cause weird things to happen to the TV, like no sound, but the receiver is on, or changing to Russian closed captioning. It's a gift.
Not knowing when to shut my mouth -- hmmm. He suggested that the United States use me as a torture device on North Korea to force them into a surrender/treaty situation. I believe he was likening my constant chatter to what they did to Noriega by blasting him out of his hide-out with heavy metal music. I would imagine it would go something like this: "Hi, Mr. Jong-Il, do you know that you're causing a lot of panic, and I'm sure you don't mean any real harm. Where did you get those sunglasses? I like them. I don't buy expensive sunglasses because I lose them. Wal-Mart sells the ones I buy for $7, so I buy two pairs, except I keep one pair with me and one with Smitty, so I have spares. Smitty's my husband; he's really tall, but you shouldn't feel bad for being short. I'm short, and you can fit into little spaces no one else can. Have you experienced that? Do you like Barack Obama? I do; I worked for John Kerry, but I didn't really like him. Have you met him? He's the most boring man on the face of the earth, and he really does look like a horse..." Just a sampling...I could actually solve this thing in 2 days, tops. Give me coffee, pixie stix, and Adapex...I'll talk for 12 hours without stopping.
So, those are Smitty's contributions, and I have a few of my own:
1. Admitting I'm wrong -- I will do it, but it can take days, weeks, even months for me to actually utter, "I was wrong." I think I view it as a weakness, plus I am seriously so stubborn, it's ridiculous..(thanks, Daddy). I will acknowledge to myself that I'm wrong, but I will justify it all day long how, in fact, I was not wrong. It might devolve into, "No, stupid head, you're wrong," or "Your mama," but if you've ever gotten an "I was wrong" out of me...kudos.
2. Keeping cars clean -- I'm actually doing somewhat well with my little Chevrolet Aveo made from plastic bottles. Once I got 3 weeks of newspapers out of there, it was easy. Now, I just have a ton of books for which we have no room and my sad CDs because I keep leaving my iPod in Smitty's truck, and I suspect he's trying to teach me a lesson by not just giving it to me...stupid lesson
3. Anything requiring analysis or math -- See, here's my thing, I met some brilliant engineering and computer science students at UAH when I went there, but they couldn't string a sentence together or interact all that well with, y'know, people. So, while, yes, those people could probably buy and sell me 10 times over today, I don't care. I'm glad I'm good with people and words and adapting to new situations. You can have your lines of code and programming and designing bridges and stuff; I'll have sex, thank you very much.
4. Most things domestic -- I remember when Smitty and I had our wedding shower at his church, and we got mostly cooking accessories. With almost every gift, I was like "What is this?" until finally the ladies at the church suggested that Smitty do most of the cooking because they seemed genuinely afraid of the prospect of my operating kitchen appliances.
I'm sort of like a boy when it comes to cleaning. As long as stuff isn't blatantly dirty, and it doesn't smell, I don't really see the need to clean it. I don't like dust, and I try to push that into crevices that we can't see..therefore, it doesn't exist. Vacuuming makes me sweat, and every time I clean the bathroom, I get dizzy and high from the fumes. This is why I need "people." Do you know how nice I would be to a housekeeper? OMG, she would be like Alice from the "Brady Bunch," a part of the family. Once the book royalties start rolling in, we're getting a nice, friendly housekeeper.
That is but a mere dusting of my lesser qualities, but I already feel better, like when I helped buy a child for Christmas...or rent them or whatever with a shoebox...good times.
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