The raccoon made me do it

The raccoon made me do it.

I’ll start at the beginning. We all have innate gifts, called intelligences. No need to brag 😉, but I’ve been quite happy with mine. What I DON’T have is spatial intelligence. (OMG, you have no idea!) Solving spatial problems such as building or assembling things, seeing in 3D: I-just-don’t-get-it. Can’t do it. In my next life, please!

Considering the above, you might ask how I’ve coped all these years with practical issues requiring spatial intelligence? CALL someone to do it for me! There you go. Put those steps together for my dog - call Ted! Can’t get the batteries out of my exercise bike - call Susie!  And the beat goes on (and on and on and on.) Yes, please, just do it for me…

I want my candy (dog steps, something assembled, whatever) RIGHT NOW!  I’ve been gifted with wonderful friends who, when asked, say “Sure, I’ll be over shortly.” Of these good, kind, people, no one ever said “Let me show you how to do it yourself.” If they had, I would have been inwardly apoplectic. I want it NOW! (Oh, gee, how old are we, wanting instant gratification?  Hmmm…)

So, let’s call this for what it is. My beloved, caring, friends have been inadvertent enablers. When spatial intelligence becomes an obstacle to something I want/need, my wonderful friends have helped me, time and again, get around my apparent deficiency and enabled my desire for immediate gratification.

Then came the pandemic. And the raccoon.

I love my bird feeder. An incredibly resourceful raccoon also fell in love with my bird feeder. Winter, fewer available food sources, but wait…. there’s Jan‘s birdfeeder! Oh, whoopee! Easy din-din.

No “whoopee” from my end, however. For 6+ weeks, Ms/Mr Raccoon put me to shame. Seriously. Picture Jan shaking her head in abject frustration - night after night after night. (Especially the morning I discovered the bird feeder, dislodged from the pole once again, and dragged 20 feet away. Arghh!)

I tried everything Dr. Google suggested, everything. The only good outcome from ALL these attempts is that I now have an excellent bottle of Sriracha hot sauce which, fortunately, can be used for other things than just coating the bird feeder with it.  I take my blessings wherever I can find them. 😉

Google options exhausted.  Bright idea, I’ll try bungee cords! But, uh oh, using bungee cords and finding the appropriate angles for attaching them is SPATIAL intelligence! Oh, no!

Here’s the Catch -22, my usual tactic for avoiding spatial intelligence challenges, asking for in-person help, was off the table. I have an underlying health concern that may put me at higher Covid risk and limits my capacity to be around people. Nope to my usual easy out.  (Somewhere, the gods were laughing at my predicament.)

Stuck. Just me, Ms/Mr raccoon, and the bungee cords. Showdown at the Hutton corral!

Desperation drives persistence. And, damn, after about a week’s worth of bungee failures, success!  Ms. Spatially Challenged figured out the bungee cord angle which inhibits the raccoon from its nightly burglaries! I did it! I did it! My smile was as wide as the horizon and bright enough to light up a small village. I can’t even begin to tell you…

Moral to this saga? Well, thanks to the raccoon (and the pandemic), I completed a complicated spatial intelligence chore on my own. (Yes!) And totally unexpectedly, I now find myself possessed of a new sense of confidence in facing future spatial intelligence tasks. (Wait, did I really just write that?) Back to that grin as wide as the horizon….