Family Daze: Useless Skills

One thing I’ve learned after all these years on this planet is that there are a lot of people who have, somehow or other, acquired totally useless skills. Oh, don’t start yelling. I’m not talking about things like algebra or English degrees or anything like that. I mean skills more along the lines of, say, touching your ears with your feet, or riding a unicycle with a flaming fort between your teeth, or singing bawdy songs while gargling.

Now some of you are out there saying "Hey, what do you mean that isn’t useful? That’s how I spent most of my college years, you know."

But, face it, when was the last time you read a job description that went, "Requirements: typing at 40 WPM, knowledge of shorthand a must, computer proficient in MS Word and able to shoot Jell-O out of nose." My guess is never. (Although it can be argued that the last skill would be particularly beneficial at company beer bashes and Christmas parties.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these skills aren’t without merit. It just proves my point that the term "useless" is subjective. In fact, since I’ve become a parent, I’ve acquired a lot of skills that people in more sophisticated circles would deem totally useless.

For instance, I can now simultaneously grip a wiggly baby, hold a diaper in place with my feet and safety pin it securely with my teeth. And that’s not all. I can also fasten a stubborn toddler into a car seat, snap in an infant carrier, clean the crumbs off the binky that had fallen in the floor boards, change the CD, adjust the rearview mirror AND put on lipstick in under five seconds.

Useless skills? I think not.

In fact, if you look closely enough, you’ll see that there’s a plethora of people with totally useless skills all around you.

My friend Julie is the only person I know who can make decent balloon poodles. While, granted, this skill doesn’t help her one bit when it’s time to fix the car or balance her checkbook, it does make her invaluable on the preschool birthday party circuit.

On top of that, I also have contacts who make origami cranes and can stop a running horse in its tracks by pulling on its tail.

In fact, just the other day my husband was wrestling over a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. Mind you, I could never fully understand his addiction to them since, in our fourteen years of marriage, words have never been one of his strong points. But, as they say, stranger things have happened.

"What begins with an "s" has six letters and means ‘mysterious and baffling," he asked.

"I have no idea. "Spigot? Sniffy? Spiffy? Spam-m-m????" I tried.

"Very funny," he said in a tone that inferred this is exactly the kind of attitude responsible for the downfall of literacy in western civilization. It also inferred that he wasn’t going to move an inch off his recliner until he found out. Suddenly, I had a flash-forward of him sitting there several months from now, wrapped with strings of twinkle lights and garland, and surrounded by Christmas presents.

So I called our neighbor, Lisa, a tiny, soft-spoken woman, who can’t work a cell phone or program a VCR, but who has an unexplainable knack for completing crossword puzzles.

And sure enough, without skipping a beat she said, "subtle."

So you see, useless skills can be very handy indeed.

That said, there are some bona fide useful skills that I have successfully avoided learning. Mostly they are things that fall into either the cooking, cleaning, or (especially) sewing category. It’s not like I’m incompetent or lazy; I prefer to think of it more as self-preservation. After all, when was the last time someone called you up the night before the PTA pot luck and desperately asked you to hum the Star Spangled Banner through a kazoo?

Me, I say let someone else handle the truly useful stuff. Changing a tire? Fixing a leak? Sewing on a button? Forget about it!

But call me if you ever need someone who can do the limbo while getting a knot out of wet tennis shoes with their teeth.

Hey, if that’s not a useful skill, I don’t know what is.

Debbie Farmer is a humorist and mother holding down the fort in California.

Readers can reach Debbie at familydaze@oasisnewsfeatures. com, or at Debbie Farmer, c/o Oasis Newsfeatures, P. O. Box 2144, Middletown, Ohio, 45042.