Life Skills

There are some things you realize, as you get older, and become a responsible adult...

The first questions you see to ask youself are:

Now how am I supposed to fix that?
Why is the sink making that noise?
Why is there water all over the bathroom floor?

Then you go searching for the phone book or Google.  Or a neighbor who has skills.

At some point, in high school or college, there should be a required life skills class.   Something.  A semester course that teaches you basic household wiring (I'm literally going to have to get an electrician in here to replace a blown outlet in my kitchen).   Or even basic household plumbing...replacing a faucet, or putting the guts back in a toilet...the mysteries of the plumbing aisle astound me.  How about a few days of sheet rock repair to allow you to do the job without looking like a five year old did it?  I'd love to know if 'that noise' coming from my kitchen sink is supposed to be there.  Or how to wire in a new dining room light that doesn't look like it is from 1993.  Or a garbage disposal.  I'd love to have a garbage disposal.  But then I realize I need to call someone in to do it, and then I just rethink the whole plan.

I mean really, they have a freaking cartoon character that makes home repair look easy!  Right now, The Toddler is watching Handy Manny.  It's like Bob Vila for the preschooler set.  And he makes me feel totally  inadequate.  He's a cartoon character with animated talking tools for crying out loud...and I feel like I am watching his every move to see how he does it.  He built a birdhouse today.  Complete with Cape Style upstairs windows.  Yeah.  Mine would have been a milk carton with a hole cut in it.

Back in my high school/junior high days...we took a one week course on gun safety.  Yes, we did.  It was rural West Virginia and a new program.  You had to have your Hunter Safety card to get your hunting license...so therefore they just brought it to the school.  It was handy.

We had a goofy shop class.  I made a potato bin.  It worked...sorta.  Yay.

Why in there could they not teach home wiring, plumbing, sheet rock repair, basic painting skills.  Some kind of home repair.  Something.  Something that you would USE in life.  Maybe not in Junior High, but definitely High School, or as part of every Major program in College. 

And add in a 'What does this Mean when my Car makes this Noise' class.  That'd be real handy.  

But then again, I wouldn't have realized the value of it.  I probably wouldn't have paid a lick of attention.   I would have been more concerned about the classes that I need to graduate and work in my field. 

Now they offer these classes, at a local community college, for a rather nice fee, at night...but I have a real world job, a long commute, a kid and no time.  *sigh*

Ha!  If I only knew then what I know now...which one class would have been worth more in the long run.