Now THIS is scary.

I was out in the yard, trying to estimate distance, and I realized that I'm really bad at that. This was kind of a reminder that I'm bad at pretty much everything you can name.

How did I get this lame?

I always looked up to Batman when I was a little kid. Bruce Wayne is an omnicompetent adult, able to speak 40 languages, run a multi-billion-dollar corporation, kick anyone's behind up to and including Superman's, and makes all the ladies swoon.

The anti-me

I'm the opposite of omnicompetent. I'm incompetent. No, really, I'm anticompetent. I drain the competence of others around me.

Is it unfair to compare myself to a fictional character? Okay, compare this to anyone you know.

I speak one language, despite multiple years of study of others. I have failed to dislodge Stephen King or James Patterson from the best-seller lists, or in fact anyone from any list. I am haunted by the thought that after years of mortgage payments I may still owe more than I am worth. I suck so much at sports that I'm certain that the teams I like get worse because I root for them. (I recently told a New Jersey Devils fan that if I joined his fan club, the Devils would all break their legs and their arena would burn down.) I'm no good at strategy games; I'm the only person I know who fell for the fool's mate in chess. I can tie my shoes and tie a necktie, but despite making it to Webelos, that's it for knots. I can read music a little, but after years of lessons I can play no instrument. I act like a pro editor, as packed with English knowledge as a can-you-guess-how-many-knowledges-are-in-this-jar contest at the fair, but I have to look everything up every day. I view my large book collection with despair, for I have forgotten 99 percent of everything I've read. Don't ask me to diagram a sentence. I'm an adequate driver, which is my way of saying I haven't killed anyone, although I did total a car. I can't dance. I can't ride a horse, a snowmobile, an ATV, or a surfboard; I can't skate, ski, fly a plane, drive a rig, and I'll never hang-glide. I'm clumsy and I like to eat food that's bad for me. The legions of women I have met have without exception failed to swoon at me. I can handle jobs around the house about as well as a Jerry Lewis character; my dad could do any of that stuff and I barely learned light bulb maintenance. My dogs are good boys because my wife trained them and because they are just good-natured guys. At heart I'm not even a good-natured guy; the very people whom the Bible tells me to be good to as a bare minimum--brothers and neighbors--are the very people who hate me the most.

And I can't tell thirty feet from twenty feet without a very long tape measure.

Were I to write a ghost story, my ghosts would not be vengeful and angry. That stuff enflames the spirit and burns out the ghost. Mine would be sickly and regretful, mourning all the failures, doomed with Sartrean nausea.

I feel certain that your presence here has helped you lose some competence points. I think I have Schleprock powers to bring misery to others. Perhaps I could become a supervillain -- Failstorm, who sucks competence from others and... it dissipates. Not like I can use it.

Meh, I'd probably just trip on my cape and fall down the stairs. Embarrassing.