Rants & RAVES

Embarrassing Personal Secret No. 217

Idon’t measure. Nope. Not at all. I grew up in a construction family filled with architects, engineers, roofers, masons, fix-it/buildit/make-it-yourself types and

I can’t measure. I’m like the secret mutant child they hide in the attic and no one ever talks about. My disability is a deep source of shame among my tribe.

While my family members are all constructing their own garages and decks, I’m the one who brought all my used kitchen blinds to a big box store. I jammed a shopping cart full of those greasy, dusty, once-white-now-gray blinds and pushed them right into the home décor department. I had also made the unfortunate decision to ask my sister to meet me there and help me figure out what I needed.

Upon my arrival, my horrorstricken, saucer-eyed sister (the architect) yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” as I strolled my filthy prizes down the aisle. “I brought these to show the guy what I need”, I replied. “Why didn’t you just write down the measurements?” she queried.

She was unaware until this particular episode that this is how I operate.

I bring the broken thing to the hardware store, hand it to the first person I see, stand by the register, and clean out my purse. Then young, energetic people adorned with magical measuring tools wander off on a quest for my holy grail. If I look helpless enough, they’ll even wheel the item right to the register for me. All I have to do is mention my lack of upper body strength and I can even get them to load the car.

Once my sister witnessed this unfortunate incident, she began to understand why my vehicle is always filled with old light bulbs, dead batteries, scraps of wood, bent heating vents and miscellaneous pieces of conduit.

I don’t know the gene that’s necessary to bestow upon a person the ability to size things. All I know is, I didn’t inherit it. This was all made crystal clear when I took my first written drivers test.

Question No. 36 - When driving in heavy traffic, you should be the following safe stopping distance from the car in front of you: 5 feet 10 feet 15 feet 50 feet

Five feet, 5 yards, 5 inches, 5 meters, 5 miles … in my mind, it’s all the same. I’m basically just thrilled that the car is still in front of me and I haven’t hit it yet. How do people know this crap? God help me when I have to order envelopes for my holiday cards. I basically just order every size they make and hope for the best.

This deficiency also ruins my chances as a crack eye-witness for the police. I already know how that scenario is gonna go down. “How tall was the axe murderer, ma’am?” I will start waving my arms and gesticulating madly to demonstrate. ”Short, maybe, or kinda tallish. He looked really teeny next to that building.”

I have no sense for this sort of

thing, and I assume it’s my parent’s fault. All those years of rolling around in the backseat of the station wagon without seatbelts while they chain-smoked probably ruined my measuring skills. Suffice to say, I have multiple holes in the wall under every picture I’ve ever hung. Most of my artwork is at an unusual angle, which people assume is because I’m “artsy.” Actually, it’s just because my decorating style is, “eye it up and hope for the best.”

So, if you see me at the hardware store with an industrial trash bag full of filthy furnace filters and a broken piece of glass from my bookshelf doors, don’t be concerned. I’m just fine … just doin’ a little shop-

ping. I’d be a lot more nervous if you were unlucky enough to be parked close to me in the parking lot. 