I'm Ready To Weaponize My Own Incompetence

I’ve never been very good at changing lightbulbs. I didn’t learn how to do it when I was younger and then the knowledge of lightbulb changing was foisted upon me as a single parent. All of the rooms in our newly rented house went dark and there was no one else to change the lightbulbs. So there I stood on our coffee table, foolish and uncomfortable, a box of lightbulbs of indeterminate wattage in my hand as my dubious children watched. Forced to muscle through my incompetence.

I’ve never been very good at sorting out the recycling either. And don’t get me started on composting. Am I composting egg shells or do they go in the last resort garbage bag?

At 53 years old, I’m staring down a laundry list of skills I have never mastered. Like doing laundry. It is my personal belief that stain removers are a tax on hope. They have never performed for me and so I refuse to believe in their efficacy. I have never learned to properly garden or do my eye makeup, to plan out my meals on a Sunday or to find gas at the cheapest station in town before the price changes.

Now, in this new year, I am ready to own my incompetence in all of these issues and what’s more, what’s better, what’s so delicious about my self awareness, is that I’ve decided to weaponize said incompetence.

The idea for this took root — pun intended — when a friend of mine, who was out for a run by my house one day, saw me drinking my coffee, stooped over some sort of brownish-green plant while I was “gardening.” He came back two hours later with a trunk full of fresh soil and mulch and plants. “I couldn’t handle you just sitting there looking confused,” he told me. “Why don’t you let me do it?”

That’s when the lightbulb went off: Much like the adorably incompetent men in my family growing up, I too could simply accept that I was bad at things and stay bad at them until someone came along and did them for me.

So going forward, I won’t be changing lightbulbs moving forward, for example. I will instead be reminding my partner that he is just so much better than I am at changing lightbulbs and so this will become a job for him and only him. I will simply not change lightbulbs. If he does not immediately take up the torch, so to speak, I will live by flattering, gentle candlelight and be at peace within myself. Because I’m no longer accepting jobs that leave me feeling less than or awkward or foolish. I am already the de facto planner and maker of all meals, tidier of all counters, organizer of all life events, and doer of a million different daily chores. That’s enough.

To be fair, I’m happy to do regular laundry like towels and sheets and really anything stain-free because I find this very satisfying. I’m still willing to do the chores that make me feel good or smart or happy when they’re completed, like cooking and baking those spicy chocolate cookies everyone likes. It’s really just the jobs I don’t like that I won’t be doing.

This is the miracle of middle-age. This is the dessert I get to enjoy after my main dish of raising kids for all of those years. I am bad at things. I now understand why the men in my family growing up would huddle together in the living room, looking artfully confused and claiming they didn’t know how to make a grilled cheese or do the dishes or fold fitted sheets. It’s relaxing. Liberating, even.

And so I enter this next stage of my life, wearing my well-earned badge of weaponized incompetence proudly on my chest. I find myself seeking out new chores I might be able to avoid. I wonder if it’s time to make naps a part of my daily routine.

I wonder why I ever bothered changing lightbulbs at all.

Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible, she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once, but she’s open to requests.