Seriously Y'all...

Yesterday, I was evaluated for vocational aptitude. The testing took 3 hours and covered math skills, spelling, reading comprehension, vocabulary, spacial relations, hand dexterity skills, etc... Believe it or not, this is part of the a program I've applied to that would pay for knee replacement surgery. It's really a proactive program based on the premise that the state would spend less money providing restorative medical care to folks than having to pay out social security, disability and housing for the rest of our natural lives. Job training and placement after the restorative medical care is part of the program. That's all fine and good except I already have a job and restorative medical care will help me keep my job and housing.

I was concerned about being tested for math. It wasn't my strongest subject in school and I actually considered buying some flash cards to brush up. Pause for a moment and have a seat at the multiplication table without a calculator. See? I shouldn't have been so concerned. I whizzed through the addition, subtraction, multiplication and long division problems. Then I froze. Before me were fractions, percentages, problems involving fractions and percentages, solving for "n", solving for "y", solving for "x" and then the dreaded pi (and I don't mean apple). The room went dark, I saw stars and thought I was going to faint. I looked at the kind-hearted state employee in charge of the testing and mouthed the word "help".

Sweaty palms and a dry mouth didn't deter me. We plowed through his neat pile of papers and then we came to what I can best describe as a questionnaire. A list of 60 or so statements that I would read and then indicate whether the statement was: a) very much like me, b) somewhat like me, c) not like me at all. The focus of the questions seemed to be skewed toward learning/study habits, i.e. "I like to learn in a room with bright lights." or "I like to sit at a desk when I am studying." You get the drift. So I'm plowing through these soul-revealing questions when I get to one that causes me to burst out laughing and utter, "You have got to be kidding me!" Here's the statement:

"Lifting and moving things helps me show others how strong I am."

Seriously y'all...it took a few minutes to recover from that one. I was so throwed off I answered "a" instead of "c".

But I've saved the best for last...the Manual Speed and Dexterity test. Seriously y'all...I asked the dude if I could have a copy of it to post on my blog, but he firmly said, "no". The best way I can describe it is ugly geometric wallpaper from the 70's. A patter sort of like this:

v

^

*

v

^

*

v

^

*

v

This pattern was printed vertically on the page, 28 sets of these inverted V's and 19 rows of them running left to right. (really sorry I don't have the visual for you). Anyway...the instructions were for me to draw a vertical line from the bottom of the v to the top of the inverted v as many times as I could in a 5 minute period. Seriously y'all...I just looked at the dude and asked, "really?" He said, "yeah." So off I went, drawing straight lines, the whole time talking to the testing dude and letting him know what I'd really like to do is draw some diagonal lines, maybe a few flowers and a smiley face. Testing dude was amused.

So...after 3 hours of testing, the end result was I had the greatest aptitude in the following professions:

1. Poet

2. Fish and Game Warden

3. Radio/TV Announcer

Seriously y'all...could that not be more perfect?