I really hate it when someone uses "I don't know how" as an escuse to not do something (and refuses to learn).

See, I feel this way about other people making excuses not to use the internet, but would have no qualms AT ALL about saying "I'm so sorry, but I don't know how to skin and gut a deer. Call me when you need help roasting it back at the lodge!"

Yeah, I am talking about stuff that comes up daily (like learning how to use the internet or software), not skinning a deer.

My mother never learned to type because she wasn't going to be a secretary -- she does OK now, but I don't think she was expecting to work in a world without people to do your typing for you! (My father typed her grad school papers for her.)

(My father typed her grad school papers for her.)

That was nice of your father!

I was cracking up when I was helping Steve in Boston. At one point, I was hooking up all of his home theater components and putting up shelving and he was in the kitchen, lining his cabinets and putting away dishes. Total stereotypical gender role reversal. He's not mechanical in the slightest and gets befuddled by wires and components and hammers and nails and wrenches.

He knew how to type! Also, yes.

My ex-dissertation advisor, who is 60, told me that not only did the department have older women who typed your dissertation for you when he did his, they also fixed your grammar and spelling and stuff so you didn't have to worry about those things. I think he got his PhD in 1975.

If I were one of those women, I would have been hard-pressed to not bring a machine gun to work one day.

Also, I don't touch-type. But I am damned fast with the two index fingers. Except for that annoying ' ; key thing.

My sister had touch-typing classes in high school. I thought it was N. American bullshit classes. We only had five computers in our whole school in England. And many kids just never used them.

And here I am, at one all the time, touch-typing away. But I don't know how to do it properly. I cheat a lot. And get sore forearms.

Headache + two co-workers on lengthy and lively conference calls + a co-worker who insists on clicking his pen constantly = very unhappy Suzi.

If I were one of those women, I would have been hard-pressed to not bring a machine gun to work one day.

This is what my mother was hoping to avoid. I never took typing in school, but do touch-type now, if not quite "right."

My grandfather was an automechanic but he refused to teach my dad anything about fixing cars in the hopes that he'd do something else with his life.

Conversely, my Dad could touch type 90+wpm on a manual typewriter (missing fingers and all) and encouraged me to take typing.

Which I did for two years in HS. And then proceeded to type papers for money in college and support myself with the mad typing skills for years.