Last week, I got pulled over by a cop because my inspection sticker on my car was a year over due. I was vaguely aware that cars had to be inspected, but I had never really bothered to find out what the exact rules were. I have chosen to remain ignorant about all things regarding car rules and maintenance.
I haven’t ignored car rules, because it’s a man thing. There are also vast number of girl stuff that I refuse to learn. Like when you are supposed to add bleach to your wash. And the correct way to fold fitted sheets.
I learned long ago from my father that if you remain ignorant about a subject, others will feel pity on you and take care of it for you. They will shake their heads and laugh that even with a PhD, you don’t know something as simple as X. After they are done with the chuckle, they’ll just do X for you. Seems good to me.
We all do that to a certain degree. They are only so many things that we can really do properly. So my mom knows the sale price of mallowmars at Shop Rite, but she doesn’t know how to turn off my cordless phone.
Question of the Day: On what matters are you purposely ignorant?
Apt. 11d 
I can’t start our gas-powered lawn mower. One day last summer, when my husband was out of town for a week, I went and bought a manual lawnmower, rather than attempt to figure out the gas one. I’m sure it is not difficult. but there is no more room in my brain. really, no room.
LikeLike
I’m with you on the car thing; that belongs to my husband. Ditto on our boiler and all our steam radiators, and the grill.
(I’m suddenly embarrassed at how traditionally-role-oriented these things are!)
LikeLike
I refused to learn how to make coffee. When I was younger, I didn’t want to be the woman in the office who always made coffee for the men. I don’t drink coffee, so I had a good excuse.
I can’t do the lawn mower or many car things, either. Or folding fitted sheets (there is a “way”?) or bleach. I didn’t even know about sorting laundry till I was 30-something.
LikeLike
I’ve seen a diagram and an explanation of how to fold fitted sheets, but I got lost midway while trying to follow the directions. It seemed to require an advanced degree in topology. I don’t think I’ve even seen a folded fitted sheet in real life (as opposed to in store packaging). It is possible to lead a good life without knowing how to do it.
LikeLike
Although it must be possible to lead a good life without knowing how to fold a fitted sheet, I believe mine would be immeasurably enhanced if I could figure it out. I too have read the directions and failed. It could be one of those things that you have see being done. But, I also suspect it’s one of those things that’s actually hard, as opposed, to, say, knowing how frequently you’re supposed to get your car inspected (which is easy to know)
Right now, the thing I’m remaining ignorant on is the key code to enter my child’s preschool. They’ve actually assigned personalized keycodes/child. On encountering that, I found there is absolutely no room in my brain to memorize another keycode. So, I keep it in a note on my iPhone, and look at it every single time I open the door.
I think the parallel question you need to ask is what do you wish you weren’t ignorant about? I for example, wish I knew a lot more about the mechanics of houses, and how they are constructed. It’s a huge mystery to me.
LikeLike
Most of my purposely ignorant things relate to cooking–and while I drink a lot of coffee, like WendyW, I refuse to make it for any work-related setting. I’ll raise you one car-related error, though. Last year, I forgot to register one of our cars, and it went unregistered for about six months.
LikeLike
I refuse to learn how to relight our gas furnace. Because I don’t want to die.
LikeLike
I cannot figure out how to operate the fax machine, unless I happen to be waiting for a fax.
And they have located a honking big complicated copier/scanner near our cluster of cubicles. It’s the size of a Mini Cooper. People come from all over the suite to stare at it in bafflement. The natural inclination is to ask one of us software developers how it works, as if mere proximity conferred special expertise.
LikeLike
It’s not that I’m purposely ignorant about it, but I kind of don’t mind that I periodically lose my wallet. I know, that’s horrible, right? It’s SUCH A PAIN. But people rely on me for so much because I’m responsible, so I figure that after I lose my wallet, people think I’m a complete idiot and maybe they’ll stop thinking I’m so responsible all the time. (Without actually having to let anyone down, see?)
LikeLike
bj,
Keep going back to the NYT Dream House blog and you’ll eventually know enough to build your own house, all by yourself. They’ve finally broken ground and are posting weekly photo updates of the house’s progress. The commenting community there is very well-informed, and I keep writing down stuff I learn there, squirreling it away for when we actually buy or build a house. The couple building the house is still sort of weird and feckless (Ooo! Our insurance bill is going to be so big! Oooo! There are so many different kinds of cabinets!), which is strange coming from a couple of professionally successful 50-somethings, but I think the blog is actually getting better as construction goes on, and the blogging couple engages more with commenters. Their contractor has started dropping in to the comments, too.
My parents started building a house when I was about 9 and moved in as soon as the roof was on with me, my sister, and a new baby (we didn’t have running water in the bathrooms for a while). It took several years (maybe even 5) for the finishing work to be completed. They did most of the work themselves, except for plumbing, electric, etc. It was a jolly way to grow up: my sister and I would haul away hammers and nails to go build our own projects, including a tree house. That said, that’s not my plan.
LikeLike
The grill. I’ll use the stove or oven, but the very hot flaming grill, no way. I am not a fan of fire. I used to be able to put matches and those butane long-handled firestarters on the list but I have done that grudgingly a few times.
I also would put Tolkien on this list. Just not going to try.
LikeLike
I am purposefully ignorant about a great many things; like you, Laura, I learned from my father, the master of learned helplessness.
Here are a few of them: operating the grill; making coffee; making my mom’s beans and cornbread (BH learned); ironing; operating the lawn mower; turning on the pilot light (when we had a gas stove); peeling an apple with a knife; hanging up pants by folding them over the hanger. I also can’t fold sheets and have no desire to learn.
I am pretty good at keeping tabs on the car (registration, oil changes, tire rotation, etc), amazingly enough. I would like to learn how to change a tire. I’ve just never gotten around to it, even though I genuinely want to know how to do it.
I can’t decide if my list (which has many more items) is an indication of laziness or already having too much information inside my limited brain.
LikeLike
The sexual mores of my students.
Otherwise I’m pretty responsible.
LikeLike
Except for folding fitted sheets (totally pointless!), I couldn’t think of anything – I wonder if this is a married person thing? I know a man who hasn’t bought his own clothes, ever, for the last ten years, married to a woman who can’t find her way around the major city they have lived for 15 years because she never drives. And my mom, though not afraid to get her hands dirty with gardening, etc., and in control of the family’s finances, doesn’t know how/is afraid to fill the car with gas, while my dad can’t cook except to barbeque.
LikeLike
I refuse to get the hang of text messaging. Email and cell phone are enough– I don’t need any more modes of communication! I also don’t know how to light pilot lights.
Sarah, I’m with you on the Tolkien front, too.
LikeLike
Not long after we married, I spoiled some delicates in the wash, and my wife took the laundry away from me. I haven’t worked hard to regain her trust…
LikeLike
I can fold the fitted sheets (I think that’s from kibbutz), but the remote control for the DVDs frustrates me immensely. The information does not seem to stay in my brain and each time it seems that I learn the whole thing all over again.
LikeLike
Anyone who’se ever worked at a small nonprofit organization knows how to know as little as possible about computers, especially computer networks.
LikeLike
At work, I provide IT support for PC users and a proprietary application which runs on the PCs, plus a web application ditto.
When I get home, where there are three MacIntosh computers – courtesy of a semi-self-employed Graphic designer partner – I am boundlessly ignorant of anything to do with the Mac OS. I could not fix anything to do with our home computers if you paid me, even though I use them to blog on.
LikeLike
I have to point this out. Just in case anyone is interested. 😉
LikeLike
I’m way late to the discussion, but I have to share my personal revelation on the subject of fitted sheets. Once I was doing my laundry at a laundromat, and there was a woman who worked there doing their drop-off laundry service (there was both self-serve, like I was doing, and full-serve, I guess). She pulled out some sheets to fold, and I thought, a-hah! I’ll get to see how a professional folds fitted sheets. Well, she took that sheet in both hands, and just slapdash folded it any which way until it was a rough rectangle with bits sticking out here and there, and she put it in the pile. There and then I learned the secret – it doesn’t matter how you fold the darn things, so now I just do it any which way myself.
LikeLike