5 Useless Skills I’m Great At

We’ve all got things we deem ourselves to be great at; skills that aren’t particularly useful – but we’re kind-of-sort-of proud of them nevertheless.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I’m kind of good at these 5 things (and they’re almost entirely useless). 

1. Quoting Dirty Dancing

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I’ve seen the 1987 version of Dirty Dancing 9 times (and counting). I can quote a large portion of the film – not just the famous “nobody puts baby in the corner”  line. And, in case you were doubting my dedication, I’ve got a plant named Frances.

There’s something about the film that I just really love – the idea of a guy who believes himself to be a product, discovering that he’s worth more than that, and a young girl who spends a summer finding herself.

2. Making tea

Almost everyone in my family would argue that making a good cup of tea is a vital skill for survival – but, I suppose, it’s not really. In the bigger scheme of things making a decent cup of tea isn’t up there on the list of skills-every-person-should-definitively-have.

With all that said though, I think I’m pretty good at making tea. In part because I make the tea drinker pour their own milk (which I guess is kind of cheating?) but mainly because my mother’s been training me since I was old enough to balance a teacup on a saucer.

3. Storing random facts

Like, did you know that there are 421 words for snow in Scotland or, that in the entire ‘Humpty Dumpty’ nursery rhyme it isn’t mentioned once that the character is an egg or, how there is only one letter not used in any of the American states (spoiler: the letter is Q) or, how Octopuses have three hearts?

Well, now you do.

4. Losing chess against my brother

Crumb (not his real name) is 10 years younger than I am. And I’ve only beat him three times.

To be fair, I’m only counting the real games we’ve played. When he first began playing chess, I’ll admit, I took it easy on him – but not even a full year later it was evident that I could no longer take our chess matches halfheartedly. We’ve been playing ‘for real’ since he was seven which means we’ve been at it for a few years already.

I’m proud to say: I’m very good at losing against him. (Obviously, I don’t lose willingly. He’s just very good. And very calculated. He sets up intricate strategies and traps my little pieces into positions I need his help to get out of…)

Of course, one could mention the fact that I don’t attend tournaments or training sessions like he does, but that’s not the point here. The point is: I’m very good at losing and he’s very good at keeping my dignity in tact afterwards when he says, “That was a really good one! I think if you keep working at it, you’ll beat me next time.”

5. Using ellipses correctly (and knowing what an ellipsis is)

Tell me I’m not alone: do you have any skills that aren’t particularly useful in the bigger scheme of things? (Like being the best peanut butter sandwich maker ever or being an excellent Mexican wave participant?) I’d love to know!
(Disclaimer: I don’t mean to imply that these skills are unnecessary or unwanted in fact: I wrote this post to point out we should be proud of these skills.)