Talents

TALENTS:

It’s always amazed me that people are just naturally good at certain things. In school we were always told that everyone has at least one special talent. I used to hate when the teacher would say this. First off, I’ve never had a special talent, and that has always pissed me off. Second, I doubt very much that everyone in the world has one special talent. Highly unlikely.

Anyways, the teacher would tell the students to think of what their special talent were and write a paragraph about it. But when you’re a kid, you have yet to be beaten and soured by the world. So when the teacher assigns a waste of time assignment such as this one, you don’t know that the correct thing to do is just makeup some bull**** talent. So I would sit at my desk, trying to think of anything I was good at. Nothing would come to mind. “Thanks a lot teacher for making me feel like a useless piece of @!#$!” I remember the only thing I could think of was that my right handed thumb was double-jointed. Yep, take that! I rule! But even I knew that that was a talent too lame to write a WHOLE PARAGRAPH about. A whole paragraph! That’s like three to four sentences. There is no way it could be done.

So I would just sit at my desk thinking, thinking as hard as I possibly could. Think brain, think! What is my talent? I must have at least one talent. Anything? “Okay class, time is up.” So I’d quickly jot down a couple of sentences about my double-jointed thumb. “My talent is that I have a double-jointed thumb. It can almost bend all the way backwards. I can make it dance.”
Great job. A +. I’m sure my teachers thought I was retarded. They probably read mine out loud in the staffroom. They all had a good laugh I’m sure.

The thing is, my special talent was probably just as special as little Jimmy’s or Katie’s. They probably wrote about how they were good at hockey or dancing. When in reality, they were mediocre at best. Jimmy, you suck at hockey. Katie, you can’t dance worth @!#$. So looking back maybe I had an advantage. I knew I didn’t have a special talent. And anyways, I’d rather have a kick a*s thumb that could dance.