I am terrible at identifying types of things. It’s probably my lack of attention to detail, but it’s also ridiculous.
I honestly can’t identify so many specific types of things within so many different groups.
Yesterday, I heard someone say, “I need a new pair of Doc Martens.” I knew they were talking about shoes, but I had no idea what a Doc Marten was. I couldn’t tell you if a Doc Marten is a sneaker or a shoe or a boot. Gender-specific? Color specific?
No idea.
I also can’t look at a car and tell you its make or model.
I can’t look at a house and tell the difference between a colonial and a cape and whatever other styles of homes exist.
I’m an ignoramus when it comes to all of these things and so many more. The incomplete list includes:
Shoes
Automobiles
Houses
Flowers
Dog breeds
Cheeses
Birds
Colleges
In fairness, I never engaged in a traditional college search, so my lack of awareness makes at least a little sense. I finally made my way to college five years after graduating from high school, so I didn’t make the college visits that punctuated so many students’ junior and senior years. When I began my college career, it was a local community college, chosen due to its proximity. Later, I was offered full scholarships from Trinity College, Yale University, and Wesleyan College, so I wasn’t going to expand my college search beyond those three schools.
So I’m not familiar with the location, size, or nature of most colleges and universities. When you tell me that your daughter is applying to Swarthmore or Sarah Lawrence or Barnard, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t tell you where any of those schools are located and what they are like. Unless I attended parties at the school when I was younger or was hired to speak at the school when I was older, I’m fairly clueless about most institutions of higher learning.
I also struggle with foods of all kinds.
Elysha once asked me to pick up a mango at the grocery store. I came home with what we later determined was a papaya.
They look nothing alike.
I can’t identify items on a sushi, Thai, Chinese, and Indian menu. Mexican still confounds me at times.
I wasn’t sure what prosciutto was last weekend, and I’m still not entirely sure now.
I only recently learned what makes a Caesar salad a Caesar salad.
I know almost nothing about spices or herbs.
I can’t tell you the contents of most alcoholic drinks. I can’t tell you the difference between an espresso and a cappuccino and a latte.
Granted, I never tasted coffee, and I drink alcohol on exceedingly rare occasions, but still, I know nothing.
Enormous categories of everyday things are a mystery to me.
In my eyes, dogs are dogs.
Flowers are flowers.
Cars are cars.
I see the world in very simple terms, absent large swaths of specificity.
Dummy me.
