I Must Have Been Absent That Day

My all-purpose excuse for things I don't know

Does this look ‘safe’ to you? You still have to handle the razor blade with your fingers.

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone knows something you don’t? That everyone knows how to do something that remains a mystery to you? And you cannot figure out how this common knowledge escaped you?

All too often I feel this way. And when I do, I have a ready-made explanation for how something so simple, basic, and commonplace got by me.

In a phrase: I must have been absent that day.

Herein is a list of things that you all know but I don’t because I must have been absent that day.

I must have been absent:

• The day they explained how to replace the razor blade in your “safety razor” without slicing your finger in the process

• The day they explained how to slice a piece of bread off a loaf – or how to slice a bagel in half – without taking part of your finger with it

• The day they explained how to use a box grater for grating onions or potatoes or anything without adding extra flavor from slivers of skin and human blood (Are you sensing a basic problem with sharp objects?)

• The day they explained the difference between dress shirts and button-down shirts. Don’t dress shirts also have buttons? Is the difference that you button them up, not down?

• The day they explained the difference between trousers, chinos, and jeans, and which ones are appropriate for which situations

• The day they explained the differences among blazers, sports jackets, and suit jackets

• The day they explained why a sports jacket, which is never worn to play sports, has the word “sports” in its name

• The day they explained how to wear an expensive dress shirt without getting it stained with grease or other food stuff that will ruin it permanently -- every single time you wear it

• The day they explained what to do with clothing you wore once (or twice) but that isn’t yet in need of laundering. Putting it back in a drawer or closet just seems so wrong. So does piling it up in a corner on the floor or on a chair in your bedroom (or so I have been told by various roommates over the years).

• The day they explained that houses have mini-black holes that suck up hammers, screwdrivers, pens, notepads, packing tape, and chocolate bars

• The day they explained how to watch a football game without just seeing a mass of undifferentiated bodies crashing into each other repeatedly

• The day they explained how one decides what to make for dinner on any given night
  

Conversely, was I the only one in school on the day they explained:

• that right turns on red are optional

• that left turns on red are illegal

• that speed limits are not just recommendations

• that car horns are meant to alert another driver of danger and not a means of saying hello to someone you know whom you see walking down the street

• that, contrary to popular belief, the name “soccer” is in fact an English name for the game that the rest of the world -- except for America -- calls football

• that grown men wearing short pants look like toddlers (no offense to toddlers)

• that indeed, spelling counts

When being absent that day is not a sufficient excuse, my other go-to is: I must have been out of the country that year. It only works if the thing I missed happened in 1983.

What lessons do you feel like you missed due to absence? Leave your answer in the comments section. Also, if you know the answers to any of the things I missed due to being absent, please enlighten me.