Talents

On Sunday, our lesson in Relief Society was about talents.  The teacher passed out a piece of paper with about 50 different positive attributes listed.  She instructed us to circle 5.  I contemplated this for a while and then circled my 5.  One of these happened to be "problem solving."  I think the next day the Lord tried to tell me, "Allie, this is not one of your talents."

The situation that proves this:

Late to pick up Jackson for school, as always, I run out to the garage to get the kids in the car.  I pop open the back of the car to throw some returns in and since I am parked so close to the garage door, the back door can only go up about 1/2 way.   Suddenly, the garage door starts going up.  My sweet Creighton's new thing with the new house is opening the garage door.  He finds it thrilling.  As the garage door goes up, it takes the van door up with it and it's basically grinding it's way into the door until finally the weight of it stops the garage door.  All the while I am screaming.

I try to pull the van door down but I can't.  It is completely stuck on a screw.  I documented just in case I had to send these pictures to someone for help out of my garage --- this makes my stupidity even greater.

Can you see the screw that is preventing it to come down?

At this point in the story, Mitch says to me.  "So, why didn't you just pull the car forward."

YES MITCH.  WHY DIDN'T I JUST PULL THE CAR FORWARD?....Well, honey, it's because I don't have the talent for problem solving.  Instead, I think I have the talent of blowing up the problem to be bigger and then looking for the complicated solution.

The complicated solution: trying to get that screw undone.  It was hard.  I was actually sweating.  I can't explain why it was so difficult, but it was.  I called my mom frantically and asked if she could run and get Jackson since I was stuck in the garage.  Thankfully, she did.  Mitch called during this time and his co-workers could hear my frustration.  My mom called back to see if I was ok.  No, I was not.  I felt doomed.

About 10 minutes later, I got the screw undone.  However, the garage door still wouldn't come down.  I felt defeated.

Suddenly, the light bulb came on.  I turned my car on, pulled it forward a few feet, got out, shut the back door and I was on my way....ashamed of my stupidity.

Yes, it was one of those moments.  The sad thing is, my mom seemed to tell everyone that Creighton did something really bad to the garage and I was stuck inside.  So, rather than telling those people this rather embarrassing story, I told them I wasn't ready to share it quite yet, and I am now sharing it for all to hear.  I still haven't even told my mom what really happened.  I preferred she laugh at me privately and not in front of my face.

So to recap, I am not a problem solver.  It is not a talent of mine. Perhaps I can develop something else because I am not quite sure if you can develop the problem solver skill.  I think you either have it or don't.  Obviously, I don't.