Monday, March 26, 2012

Everybody's an Overachiever

The people around me are all above-average. This is as annoying as hell.

An acquaintance retiled her bathroom. In a weekend. After taking a two-hour class at Lowe's. It kills me to admit this, but her bathroom looks sensational.

Older daughter assembled a large piece of furniture from IKEA for me without looking at the directions, which was fortunate since I'd wept all over them after failing to discern any difference between piece A and piece B, never mind piece C.

Hubs met a female colleague for a business lunch, and when he spilled marinara sauce on his white shirt, she whipped out a Tide To Go stain stick. Days later, we were having dinner in a neighborhood restaurant, and he spilled pesto onto his khakis. To his disappointment, I don't carry concealed stain-remover sticks.


A friend hiked a good chunk of the Pacific Crest Trail. When his compass failed, he guided himself to safety using his iPhone.

I have nothing but respect for the neighbors who re-landscaped their front yard so beautifully, you'd swear a crew of professionals had done the job, and I admire the friend who's teaching himself French via Rosetta Stone, but I'm feeling a little, well inferior.

You've done something lately that makes me appear incompetent/lackadaisical/cowardly in comparison. Did you take Cordon Bleu cooking classes? Whip up prom dresses for your daughter and her friends out of remnants? Build a set of outdoor furniture from felled trees? C'mon, confess. What have you been up to?

24 comments:

Ginger Calem said...

I just giggled my way through this. You are so right, some people are just annoying! :) I can't think of anything I've done lately and even if I could, I wouldn't admit it now. haha

Prudence MacLeod said...

Tee Hee Hee, guess I'll just sit a few seats over. hehehe

Sarah Andre said...

I repotted some plants...does that count?

How about HAVING the Italian Rosetta Stone and planning to tear off the plastic wrapping one of these days...really.

Louise Behiel said...

Pat, you're safe with me. I'll sit beside you on the bench and we can note all the over achievers around us.

Lark Howard said...

I dragged myself out of bed this morning, ate the breakfast my husband made for me, got dressed (all in black to be sure I matched) and drove to work without hitting anything. I think that just barely qualifies me for competency, definitely not over-achieving. :-)

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Ginger, you do exercises that require kicking and punching while in mid-air. You defy gravity! If that's not over achieving, I don't know what is.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Prudence, I miss your ROW check-ins. My spirits used to rise a little when you admitted you hadn't completed the last item on your lengthy to-do lists. If course, you would have knocked out twelve other things.

Nice job building that studio on your property, Pru. Please tell me that job took two weekends.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

I like you, Sarah. I really like you.

Kecia Adams said...

LOL! Loved this! Hmm...color coded my tax files. But that was just a procrastination technique. Oh, and I make myself a cappuccino every morning with a VERY complicated machine. :)

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Glad I'm safe with you, Louise. There are a lot of heroes out there.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Good job not hitting anything on the way to work, Lark. Your early a.m. sounds like mine--almost soundless, no breakfast chit-chat.

If it makes you feel better, I put a teabag into a cup of water and shoved the cup into a kitchen cabinet. I closed the cabinet and atared, wondering why I didn't see the control pad for the microwave had gone. Sad. Just sad.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

You color-coded your tax files, Kecia? At first I was going to tell you to sit next to Prudence, but I recognize color-coding as a procrastination technique. Good one.

As for your complicated coffee maker, bless your heart. if you throw around words like burr and tamp and know the oil content of various beans, I might have to rethink our friendship.

Sheila Seabrook said...

Pat, I'm sitting in your corner of the room. LOL! How marvelous some people are. As to the rest of us, we'll just keep entertaining ourselves by fumbling through life. :)

Jennette Marie Powell said...

Pat, I'm glad I have some company on the underachievers' side! I went to a baby shower yesterday and didn't think to wrap the gift until right before I left - at which time I realized the wrapping paper I had would not cover the gift. And it was too big for a gift bag! Luckily the mom-to-be liked the gift enough that the fact it was only half-wrapped didn't seem to matter!

Karen McFarland said...

I think you're safe with me Pat. Not an overachiever here. Although I look at trying to write a book an achievement. LOL! Will I ever figure it out? No, I don't have time for overachievement thank you. I'm happy to hang out with you Pat. You're my kind of gal! :)

Coleen Patrick said...

I'm not saying-ha ha. On the other hand our front lawn is brown and the Japanese Maple and hostas don't realize that it's spring yet. But our neighbors yard looks like he had it shipped over from Ireland. :)
Great post Pat!!

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Hi, Sheila,
We get a whole corner, do we? I hope we're not facing the wall and wearing dunce caps.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Gift wrap! Those two words spell c-o-m-p-e-t-i-t-i-o-n, Jennette, and wrapping baby gifts brings out the warrior in some women. How else do you account for rattles dangling cunningly from packages already decorated with bunnies made out of baby socks.

The last baby gift I bought came in rectangular packaging. I chose it because it would be easy for my fumble-fingered self to wrap.

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

I'm in good company with you, Karen!

Pat O'Dea Rosen said...

Your neighbors might use Guinness or Murphy's as fertilizer, Coleen. One part stout to 10 parts water sounds right. In fact, I'm going to try it.

Lynette M. Burrows said...

ROFL! I loved the tea bag - cup - cupboard incident! I don't dare mention any of the things I've accomplished, lest I be banished from sharing the bench with you! Thanks for the laugh, Pat.

Lynette M. Burrows said...

ROFL! Giggled through the post and laughed out loud when I read about the tea bag - cup- cupboard! I have so done that!!! I don't dare tell you about the things I've accomplished for fear I won't be allowed to sit on the bench with you! Thanks for the laugh, Pat!

Reetta Raitanen said...

I'm definately not an over achiever or skilled with practical things. I envy my girl friend who is really good at 'manly' tasks and owns an impressive array of tools. She is our handy man, not my klutzy husband :D

My biggest mishaps happen in the kitchen. I have a bad tendency to undecook rice so it crunches when you eat it. You'd think I'd have learned by now. *blushes*

Marcy Kennedy said...

I vacuumed my house yesterday :) I think that should count. I actually used to be one of those people. I wonder what happened to me. I think maybe when we become writers, we just don't have time to be miraculous in other areas because we focus our genius on our books...yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it :)