Oy, askye, that is a sucktastic day. Feel better!

When I run the world, some sort of home-ec class would be manditory. How to sew a button, fix a hem, read a simple recipe, and the stuff I WISH I had been taught: how to balance a checkbook, how to keep track of your credit, how to read/negotiate a lease ... Basic "adulting 101" stuff. Some of which I still am super-wobbly on.

Basic "adulting 101" stuff. Some of which I still am super-wobbly on.

Seriously. I wish I had been taught all that. Also auto shop.

My father insisted that I take home-ec in high school ... said it was because my mother hadn't learned to cook before they married (going by the results, I'm doubtful she learned afterwards). I didn't learn that much about cooking ... enough that I knew "creaming butter" didn't mean adding cream to the butter (something my mother did). I DID learn the basics of sewing, which did well for me - I made a fair number of my own clothes in high school, made costumes in college. And I learned the basics of embroidery, which I still do a little of.

We had that, boys and girls, in 7th grade, 8th grade and 9th grade. We learned how to comparison shop, make a grocery list, apply for jobs, have a cheese tasting, basic nutrition, meal planning, simple sewing and simple cooking.

Miss Fallon was our home ec teacher, and she was a really great lady!

I didn't need the sewing class they forced us to take in junior high, I'd been sewing for 3-4 years by then and had even won a prize (a pair of pinking shears) for a dress I made. So, while everyone else had to make a skirt (learning how to sew zippers was the endgame), I got to make...wait for it...a pair of palazzo pants. 1969 people, not a good year for fashion.

have a cheese tasting

Love.

The cheese tasting was my favorite. I remember it really well even though it was 25 years ago. We ate pieces of apple between different cheeses to cleanse our palate.

have a cheese tasting

An absolutely essential skill!

I took home ec in jr. high, and turned in a couple of really disastrous shirts. I taught myself embroidery in college, though, and I was cooking basic stuff from a young age, so cooking in home ec was no big. I'm a good cook, and know how to clean just about anything, but it was never about finding a man.

My dad also taught me to clean tack and feed livestock, to find morels, ride well enough that I was leading trail rides on the river bluffs at 8, throw a punch, change a tire, check all fluids in my car, etc. etc. They wanted me to be competent and to be able to take care of myself.

I took a typing class in high school, and we learned on Selectrics with the damned hide-your-hands thing. I can touch type for the most part, but I do look sometimes.

And I never use the right shift key, ever! I just realized!

I got $100 and a power typewriter that had a tiny screen you could flip up and would show three lines of type that you could write and edit before it would print out. THREE. LINES. And a copy of Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, which I still have and will never give away, because my parents bought it and inscribed it for me.