We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I don't know anyone who doesn't wish they were good at something they are not whilst overlooking the things at which they are truly talented. I, for one, wish I could draw. As it stands, I cannot make a credible stick figure. I am truly awful at drawing. And I so admire people who can create a reality from a blank canvas.
Emily, my wife, is at our dining room table as I write this, pouring over some forms that people have filled out. Filling my 17th cup of coffee of the morning in the adjacent kitchen, she looks up and says to me, "What is so hard about filling out a form?! I mean, seriously, why can't people fill out a form?!"
I dropped my coffee, but luckily caught it in my lower jaw, which had also dropped to the floor, for my wife is famously unable to fill out forms without constant intercession. It is a running joke amongst us. If St. Peter has a clipboard at the pearly gates Emily's well-lived life is all for naught. Unless we go together in which case I will help her fill out the form. That is, if I even make it that far. Personally, I'm thinking I should just buy a place in Purgatory. Why rent when you can own? It's not like I'll move on anytime soon.
You know the form you have to fill out at the doctor's office? The one that asks if your pee smells like asparagus and if you can see the back of your head when you roll your eyes? Em is incapable of filling it out.
"It says 'Name', here. What do they want me to put down? Do they want my maiden name? I was to be called Tom if I had been a boy, do they need to know that?"
It only goes downhill from there as the second page asks you to check off the maladies that brought you in to the office today.
"I don't know... do I suffer from headaches? I had that one in January...", she said earnestly.
"Honey," began my condescending retort, "I think the form means do you have chronic headaches that cause an issue in your life."
"Well, they're an issue when I have them. I don't like headaches..."
"But you could hardly call one headache in the last year 'chronic', now could you?"
"Well, maybe there is something wrong. I should check the box." She continued.
"Yes, fine, check the box. I don't care." I said dismissively and turned my attention back to the fascinating video on geriatric care.
"I guess I won't." Em resolved, somehow.
All was well until the very next item which started the process all over again. "... honey, you don't have a prostate..."
Our polling place is close to the house, so we get up early and walk over to avoid any traffic. Walking home, then we have the inevitable "how'd you vote" discussion. We share these things with each other, even though we occasionally disagree. That's what life is all about. Last time, there was a proposal that was written in such a way that you had to vote "Yes" to mean "No" and vice versa. I won't get into the what the proposal was because I don't intend to betray the privacy that we all have rights to as voters. Suffice it to say, Emily voted opposite of how she intended to because of the (intentionally?) confusing language of the proposal.
In the end the result worked out OK, but since then, Em and I sit down before hand and discuss all the proposals and referenda in detail so she knows how she wants to vote before she even goes in. We discuss them in order they appear on the ballot so that she can even create a mnemonic device if she feels the need to do so. This year's ballot has several proposals on it, so we have created a little rhyme so she doesn't choke in the booth.
The point is, that Emily, my dear wife, talented and gifted in so many ways planted a flag at the summit of Mt. Irony when she railed against others for not filling out her form correctly. And that's OK, she says, because "this form is simple. Even I know how to circle the best contact method!"
I am the annual hero in my home each winter when I sit down to complete the taxes. "I don't even know how you can do that", Em says. And it's actually not hard, but I don't let her know that. I stomp and brood around the house, sighing at measured intervals to feign duress. I usually get some good meals out of it. "Come here you big strong man, you need potroast!" Yes, I do!
My dearest wife wrote one about my failure to put away clothing after she washes and folds it with such care and how I finally get nutty after about a month and empty my dresser and reorganize it so everything fits. And even though I perform this task 12 times a year, I am still surprised by what I find. "Hey, look, my Tommy Brann's little league jersey!" By the way, the second 'n' really throws Em off... She still calls it 'Brawns', even though it is clearly a short a. But that's another idiosyncrasy and I don't want to appear to pile on, here in my attempt to make a point...
...Which is we all have our 'things.' And even though we know we all have our things we don't often see our things as things, but we readily see other peoples' things, even if they are the same things as our things. This is called "Fundamental Attribution Error" by academics.
I call it the top of Mt. Irony. It's funnier that way.
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