Life Lessons

In all of my almost 58 years, there are some things you should not try to learn on your own:


1. Buying a car.  You would think that something that big would not take all day to purchase.  After you're done, you feel like you've been beat up with a broom stick and then you feel that stick again when you take it in for a service item that ain't covered by that extended warranty that they "snuck into the contract"!

2.  Cooking with an iron skillet.  First off you never start off with a brand new one.  You give the new one to your parents and take theirs, then bring it back in a year.  Get your momma (or daddy) to show you how to clean it and keep it seasoned.  My uncle had one so old that he eventually cooked a hole in it!

3.  Driving a standard transmission vehicle.  This is something that must be learned.  I still feel the effects of whiplash from teaching the spousal unit and the boys.  Once you learn it, you never forget it, or the process it took to learn it.

4.  Setting up a tailgating tent.  Don't know how many times I see folks with pinched fingers or broken poles from setting up one of these tents the first time.  Then they get in a hurry during take down and learn them all over again.

5.  Cooking a turkey for the first time.  Amazing how intelligent people can't just look it up on the internet.  " Damn!  I didn't know it had a neck up in the carcass?  And what do you mean, when you say a sack of innards???"   Then there are those that darn near burn the house down trying to fry one!

6.  Go Sam's Wholesale Club.  Never go by yourself the first time.  You won't stop grabbing until your cart is full, and still you might grab a second one.  Then, how do you get all that stuff home and where do you store it?

7.  Power tools, enough said.  Done cut myself, done cut a few 11cords, drilled and stapled a finger or two.  Still have all my digits though.

8.  Turn a parent over the age of 70 loose on a computer without monitoring their activity for a couple of hours.  Mine ended up on eBay in less than 24 hours!  The other set of grandparents never know how all those popups got on their machine!

9.  Homemade ice cream.  Seriously!  One neighbor forgot to put the dasher in and didn't figure that out until an hour later.  Another plugged up the drain hole in the bucket, causing salt water to creep into the freezer bucket!

10.   Women.  Raised by one.  Got a sister.  Been married to one for over 30 years and still trying to figure them out!