I’ll be honest with you. The title 20 things I would never figure out without my husband is not particularly accurate. I’m pretty smart and used to be very self-sufficient before I had someone around upon which to foist my learned helplessness. I’d probably figure out (or already know) how to do most of these things if I had to. Other than the hooking up of electronics. I’m hopeless there.
Maybe a better title is Things I Don’t Have to Figure Out Without My Husband and Don’t Want To Figure Out Because I’d Have To Do Them. But let’s face it, that’s lots less catchy.
1. How to take the trash out instead of playing the ultimate game of Jenga and piling things on top of each other until the trash is taller than me.
2. How to replace batteries in toys and other things that are not necessary to my daily functioning. I do know how to replace them in the TV remote.
3. Where the mechanic is. What a mechanic is. Whether to trust the mechanic. What the hell the mechanic is saying.
4. What the hell righty, tighty, lefty loosey means.
5. What day the trash is picked up.
6. What causes that spinning rainbow thing on my computer and how to make it stop.
7. Directions to anywhere (without him and my GPS).
8. How to iron (hint: I don’t want to know).
9. How to hook up electronics. I would never figure this one out even if I had to.
10. Where one buys things like tires, windshield wipers and which thingee the red battery jumper-offer clamp hooks up to and which thingee the blue battery jumper-offer clamp hooks up to. BOOM!
11. How to get storage boxes with Christmas stuff and off-season clothes into and out of our eaves. Eww. It’s creepy in there.
12. How to wipe down the counters properly. According to him, I’m a half-asser. I’ve got news for him. I’m a no-asser.
13. How to sharpen knives. Sounds harder than just hacking through it with a dull one.
14. How to stop being paralyzed by my myriad of constant to-do lists. (Hint from him: ignore it if it’s not on fire)
15. The benefits of reading instructions for electronics, toys, cars or anything else. What is this paper with all these words on it???
That’s not the extent of my learned helplessness but it’s all I can think of right now because he’s not here to remind me of all the other things I can’t do without him. And he would. Because I torture him enough.
And please don’t call me sexist just because most of these things fall into the category of stereotypical things woman need men to do. I’m sure women can be crack mechanics, knife-sharpeners and instruction-readers. It’s just that I’m lazily uninterested in learning those things. Thank goodness I have my husband to help me. And me to help him. There are a few things he’ll never figure out without me. And those are next.
Give me some examples of your learned helplessness. Anyone not “know how” to cut the grass, for instance?
Ignorant like donkeys. SMH