Today, I had to face an uncomfortable truth about myself: I'm under-educated.
7 years of elementary school
3 years of junior high
3 years of high school
6 years of college
7 years of intensive training in Eugue-Ryu Karate
17 years of intensive training at my chosen art form
25+ years in the field, learning something new every day...
...and I still don't know the things I need to get on in this world.
During a surprisingly long period of professional inactivity, I luxuriated in an passtime that many 'normal' Americans take for granted: I watched a bunch of television. Some shows were very entertaining. Some were a waste of time. Some made me want to actually practice- which should indicate just how wretched they were. I saw detectives, criminal behaviorists, forensic investigators, doctors, spies, widows, professional men and women, and families on Hallmark Holiday Movies.
And after all that, be they good shows or bad, one theme emerged during this past week. It all came crashing down on me in one moment of crystalline clarity: I lack two very basic skills that seemingly EVERYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE CIVILIZED WORLD already possesses:
1. I can't pick a lock.
2. I can't hot-wire a car.
Folks- in less than 24 hours, I saw an Autralian medical diagnostic specialist break into a patient's apartment with 2 slim little pieces of metal and I saw a housewife hot-wire a car to save her abducted child from a murderous kidnapper!
Where was I when everyone else was acquiring these valuable skills? "Tomorrow's housewives" were sitting next to me in Mrs. Short's 7th grade English class, and "Future life-saving doctors" were in my Speech 101 didactic encounter group during my freshman year at the BeeGee. Did I just miss the memo that told me where the after-hours extracurricular lock-picking and hot-wiring seminars were being held? Why didn't Scot or Greg (my dorm mates)take me along?
People- many's the time that such skills would have come in handy:
*The time I took my dog for an 'emergency walk' just before rehearsal, and locked myself out of my apartment.
*The time when My Momz was laid up in the hospital, and I had to drive 1.5 hours to my hometown to pull her meds from the medicine cabinet for the doctors,... only to find that she'd changed the locks a month before.
*The time when I had to jet to a concert, and couldn't find my car keys. (I'd have gladly borne the risk of a break-in that eve, if only I could have hot-wired my Triumph Spitfire. Of course, if I actually possessed BOTH life-skills, I could have locked the damn apartment door anyway- knowing that I could always pick the lock upon my return. It's not like my stuff was actually safe- seeing that EVERYONE ELSE IN THE FREE WORLD HAD FREE ACCESS TO MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS ANYWAY...)
[at this point, it should be noted that in each of the aforementioned cases, I'd be using my "universally-known" powers for Good- not Evil....]
If I'm to believe what I see on TV, it's only by the grace of God or the innate goodness of my fellow man that I haven't been ripped off, carjacked, violated, broken into, and generally just plain ol' "punk'd" by my fellow man on a daily basis. If I had even one of these skills, I could at least make an attempt to break even. As such, I've been lucky. I've only been violated a handful of times in over a half-century of living. Perhaps more of us really are good than bad.
Or perhaps, TV is just jacked-up... and is the "vast wasteland" that Newton N. Minow coined it to be- just 5 short years after I was conceived.
For my part, I'm choosing to believe that Mr. Minow was right. The alternative is just too surreal to digest.
I think I'll stay away until 11:00PM, and tune in to Charlie Rose tonight... or maybe crack open a good book. If I don't make a stand soon, I'll be ripe for the new season of:
The Real Housewives of Flint, MI.
