Sierra Mountain Times

The Search for My Inner Expert

I was recently invited to contribute to a forum as an “expert.”  Of course, this got me to thinking…and thinking…and thinking. Just what exactly am I an expert at anyway? I decided the best way to discover my “inner expertise” would be to first list the areas in which I am almost certain I am not an expert:

Sewing

I want to sew! If I could sew, I would make curtains and quilts. I’d become a fashion designer and go on Project Runway.  I would have more self-esteem and confidence as a person in general, not to mention a killer wardrobe where everything would make me appear 15 pounds thinner through the magic of my nifty optical illusion tailoring.  

I’ve spent hours and hours trying to teach myself to sew. Once, I ordered a sewing machine from the Home Shopping Network. In between the time I ordered it and the time it arrived, I was bucked off my horse and broke my arm and dislocated my elbow which resulted in having a cast on my right arm up to my arm pit. When the machine arrived, I set it up and, even though I’m right-handed, I was so excited to get started I began sewing with my left hand. Of course, everything I managed to make looked as if it was made with my left hand, which would have been a good excuse for my lousy sewing – if it weren’t for the fact that everything I made with my right hand turned out exactly the same way.

Horsemanship

Something you might have noticed from the previous paragraph is that I am not an expert horsewoman. I got my first horse when I was 50. Since then, I have broken my arm three times (every other one, every other year). I’m making it sound as if I was bucked off three times, but, in truth, only my first broken arm was due to being bucked off. The second time I slipped while jumping out of the way of a charging horse and the third time? I fell out of a hot tub, which wasn’t technically a horse injury at all. But I felt pretty stupid about it so when people asked me how I broke my arm, I would simply answer, “I have a horse.”…and let them come to their own conclusion – which is vastly better than telling people you fell out of a hot tub.

Discerning Right from Left

Another skill I would have to eliminate myself from the list of experts is telling right from left. That’s because I cannot tell right from left. And please do not even start with me about this “my right” and “your left” business.

I must admit, I resent people who can easily tell their right from their left. And it seems like whenever I ask for directions, these people seem to magically intuit that I have dyslexic tendencies and invariably turn all smarty-pants about it and try to complicate matters just to confuse me. For instance, if I ask whether their house is on the right or on the left side of the road, they’ll say something like:

 “Well…let’s see…if you’re going east, it’s on your left but, if you’re going west, it’s on your right, but that’s MY right and YOUR left – if you’re going south, that is. Then again, if you’re coming from the north then it’s on the left side, which is YOUR right and MY left… “

So when trying to find their house, I end up guessing at where it might be. And guess what? I have never guessed right.  Which, now that I think of it, might explain my sewing problem.

Linda Vernon is the owner of Wild Monkey Copywriting offering writing designed to bring you new customers, upsell loyal customers and bring past customers back on board by communicating your value in fresh, new ways.  Call Linda at 209-743-6405 and ask about her newsletter with legs program or e-mail her at wildmonkeycopywriting@gmail.com.