Simple Tasks Aren’t Always Easy

“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”—Author unknown

“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless he doesn’t like sushi—then you also have to teach him to cook.”—Auren Hoffman, Herald Philosopher

As we I prepared dinner for our company yesterday, I had “too many irons in the fire.” I was in the midst of stir frying some vegetables and called over my shoulder, “Honey, will you please peel those last two hard boiled eggs for me so I can make the Deviled Eggs?”

Anxious to help, and eager to please, my husband set to work at the task. Many minutes later, I turned around to see him at the kitchen island, with a look of extreme concentration on his face, struggling to tear away tiny pieces of eggshell from the first egg. “Don’t you know how to peel an egg?” I asked. His sheepish look said it all.

Hiding my exasperation, I took the egg from him and marched him to the sink. “Let me show you,” I said. I turned on the tap water, put the egg under the running water, slipped my thumb under the membrane beneath the shell, and ripped off that eggshell in two seconds flat. With a little bit of effort, he managed to peel the second one.

This was not the first time I have seen my dear husband struggle in the kitchen. Although he is always more than willing to offer help, his mother never taught him his way around a kitchen. Like most of us, she realized that sometimes it’s just easier to do things ourselves rather than take the time to teach someone how to do a task. My husband’s ex-wife did all the cooking, and this wife rarely asks him to do much in the kitchen. He fumbles with peeling potatoes, he can’t slice vegetables efficiently, in fact if I ask him to boil water he might look at me with puzzlement in his eyes and ask “What size pot should I use?”

My first instinct is to laugh. These are easy chores that I assume anyone can do. After the laughter subsides, I have to play Devil’s Advocate and think, “Hold on a second…” If he handed me a cord and a lamp, I wouldn’t know how to wire the lamp (it’s a “guy” thing). I’ve never learned to use the VCR to tape my episodes of “The Closer,” because he will do it for me. If the toilet is leaking, I call out, “Honeeeey!” Like most people, I only learn to do these simple tasks when it is necessary for me to know them.

This brings me to thoughts of one of my most embarrassing (and expensive) lessons as a teenager.

I was dressed to go to work, when I remembered that there had been a red light showing on my dashboard the night before. I knew nothing about cars, but realized that this indicated trouble. Daddy was in his boxer shorts watching television under the air conditioner. I told him of the problem.

“The car needs water,” he said. “Go fill the radiator.”

“What’s a radiator,” I said.

He threw his hands in the air and sighed, “Just go take off the cap at the front of the engine, and put the water hose in there. Fill it until you see the water.”

I asked if he would show me, but he didn’t want to leave the comfort of his easy chair. So, I asked my little sister. When she was twelve years old, she took apart the washing machine, repaired it, and put it back together. She should have been able to help. But, she also refused to go out into 102 degree heat to assist me.

“Just pull off the cap, and fill it with water,” she said.

Left to my own devices, I struggled to unlock and lift the hood on my Toyota (I had never done it before). I got the water hose, and looked at the engine. What a strange foreign contraption it was! I had never seen it before.

“Just pull of the cap,” I thought. “Where’s the cap?” AhHA! I saw a cap, unscrewed it, put the hose in and turned on the water. “Fill it until you see the water,” I mused. But, the water ran for several minutes, and it didn’t fill up.

While I waited for the darn thing to fill, I looked around at this engine that made my car go. Suddenly, I saw another cap! I quickly twisted off that cap, and could see a bit of water! “Oh, NO! I have the wrong cap!”

Yes, folks, I had been putting that water into the oil receptacle and filling my crankcase with water! I looked around to see if anyone was watching, switched the water over to fill my radiator, put the caps back on and jumped in my car and drove it to work. I didn’t know any better, and I certainly didn’t tell anyone. Does it surprise anyone to know that a few days later, my car broke down? According to the mechanic, my car had a “cracked head.” Perhaps I did, too!

That was an expensive lesson for me. It took many hours of checking out groceries at the Kroger Wyatt Grocery Store to earn enough money to repair my car. These days, I would hope I would have the sense to read the instructions, but that’s another thing I was not taught to do.

I have a book that lists 100 simple things everyone should know how to do. I sneer as I glance through the chapter headings: “How to Give A Handshake,” “How to Make A Bed,” “How to Do The Laundry,” “How to Balance Your Checkbook,” etc. Those are all as easy as changing a light bulb! But, wait a minute—changing a light bulb isn’t easy if you don’t know how to do it! Any “Aggie” can tell you that.

As parents, we do our kids a disservice sometimes; at least, I know I did with my own kids. We don’t stop to take the time to teach them how to do simple tasks. In that regard, I think we probably all need to work on our parenting skills. Like other girls of my generation, I was taught “gender specific” chores. I can do household work that would be expected of any woman of my generation. I didn’t learn to use a chainsaw (which would have been considered a “guy” thing) until I was divorced and had to do it. There are a lot of things I wish I had learned to do for myself. I’m pondering that for the possibility of a series of posts.

I’m just curious. If you were listing the top five simple tasks that you think every person should know, what would they be? What “guy” chores do we neglect to teach our daughters; and what “girl stuff” do we not teach our sons? What did you not learn that you wish you had?

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Throwing In The Towel
2. Lemon Twist
3. Unless You Dwell In A Cave, There Are Things You Should Know
4. Up A Creek Without A Paddle
5. Water

Tagged as: advice, humor, life lesson