A long time ago I was going to start a blog called “I Can Do Anything” because I really can do anything.
It all started with a bench I made for my friend Patty. She wanted a built-in custom bench for her kitchen and I said, “I can make you one.” Had I ever made a bench before? No. Had I ever even used a power tool before? No. But a bench is just a box made of wood — how hard could it be?
The next few days I did some Googling and watched some YouTube videos, and by the end of the following week, she had her bench. It was just math and a little elbow grease, not too complicated at all.
In addition to carpentry, I’ve also taught myself how to draw, paint, sew, knit, crochet — you name it. I made Nora a quilt when she was younger, and I made Mark this beautiful afghan a few years ago:
My talents go beyond crafts too. My friend Nicole started a dance studio and asked if I could help her build a website with a calendar that listed classes and allowed people to sign up. I said yes even though I had no idea how to do it. But I Googled it and I did it and she got her website. (On time too!)
And let’s not forget Save Karyn. I made that website from scratch and wrote a book about it. And then a screenplay. And then another book. And then another screenplay. And had I ever done any of those things before? Nope.
I can do anything because I’m a person who reads directions, even to games, and follow them to a T. Like, sometimes we play games during our Friday Night Zoom and sometimes things get weird because not everyone follows the rules, particularly with Scattergories.
For the record, Scattergories is my favorite game and my family won’t play with me anymore because I get too competitive. So when we decided to play games I screamed, “Let’s play Scattergories!” because I was really jonesing for it.
In case you don’t know how the game goes, you roll a die and get a random letter, and then you have a list of 12 categories and you have to come up with a word for each one that starts with that letter. For example, if the letter is C and the category is fruit, you can write ‘cherry’ or ‘cranberry’ and get a point. If you come up with the same word as another player, however, you don't get a point. So you want to pick words you don’t think other players will pick.
As a bonus, you get double points if you use the first letter more than once in your answer, which is where the rules come in. You can’t add an adjective to a word just to get double points. For example, if the letter is F and the category is cars, you can say ‘Ford Fiesta’ and get two points. But you can’t say ‘fast Ferrari’ or ‘fire-engine red Fiero’ and get two points. That’s cheating.
I try to get people to play by these rules but no one does, and if I insist, I become a real KAREN who takes all the fun out of the game. And since I don’t want my friends to stop playing with me like my family, I keep my mouth shut and always come in last place. Which is fine. Because when you can do anything, you don’t need to come in first. You can sit back silently in last place knowing you can build something when the game is over and one up everyone.
Which brings us back to the point of this post.
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