I don't want to learn, I want to know

My friend's 23-year-old son told her recently that he wants to know how to cook. Before she could offer to teach him, he continued by saying, "I don't want to learn how to cook, I want to just KNOW."


Man, if acquiring talent by magic was possible, there's a whole list of things I would want to do.


1. Cook. I, too, would like to know how to cook. If there aren't directions on the box, I can't do it.


2. Multi-lingual. I would love to be fluent in several languages. Spanish and Croatian to start. Maybe Chinese and Japanese for good measure. Oh, and I've always thought German would be cool.


3. Musical ability. I would love to be able to play guitar and sing. Piano wouldn't be bad, either, but you can't take a piano camping.


4. Dress. I would like to know how to dress myself. I can put on clothes all by myself, that's not my problem. My problem is shopping for cute clothes. I can't tell you how often I call my sisters, describe my outfit and ask if it's okay.

5. Sew. I want to know how to make things. Again, I don't want to learn, I just want to know. I can do a rag quilt (two down, two more to go!), but only barely. If you look at the front, it's awesome. If you look at the back, very few of the rows line up. I tried so hard on the second blanket, too. Oh, well.

6. Basketball. I've always wanted to play basketball. I'm too short and my hands are too small. Oh, and there's the coordination thing.

7. Water ski. I look like an old man with a hunchback when I try to water ski. I always wanted to be better, but never could stand up straight.

8. Fix computers. When something goes wrong, I always have to get someone else to take care of it for me. I wish I could do it myself.

9. Car maintenance. Wouldn't it be cool if you never had to pay anyone else to work on your car? It's such a hassle to take your car in and have someone else work on it. If the problem is severe, it costs a lot of money and a lot of time. I wish I could just do it myself.

10. Construction / general repair. Same thing about car maintenance. It's a hassle to get someone to come to your house and do work. It's not always fun to do the work yourself, but if I knew what I was doing, it might make a difference.

11. Juggle. I don't know why. I just want to know.

This is just a partial list. I'm sure as soon as I post it I'll come up with twelve more things to add to it, but for now, this will do. What do you want to know how to do if you could skip the learning curve?