I’ve been reading this blogger, Jackie, who is funny, interesting and a good writer. She’s committed to posting every day this year, which is bold; plus she’s created a weekly challenge called Lollipop Tuesday where she tries something new every week. I discovered her blog when she wrote about eating crickets for the first time, which I loved because I vividly remember my experience eating bugs in Cambodia.

Including the most giant tarantula I’ve ever held, much less bitten into.

You can read about more of my Southeast Asia adventures here, on my old blog during the summer of ’08, and fortunately I own a better camera now.

Jackie’s Lollipop Tuesday post today recounted her experience successfully installing her own internet connection and ended with this realization:

“So I’m done with this “I can’t” nonsense. Sure, there are lots of things you can’t do. There are lots of things you probably really suck at. But there are lots of things you assume you can’t do that you actually can. Or even worse – before you even try, you admit defeat and pay someone else do to it for you. It’s all a big secret and I’m unraveling it. The world is full of overqualified, insecure naysayers and if you break free and have a can-do attitude, you’ll save stress, money, and get a big fat dose of confidence.”

As if she had psychically foreseen my day, I had my own Lollipop Tuesday today when I successfully jumped the dead battery in my truck and brought the whole thing to life, much like God or magic or a person who follows instructions.

It’s weird because I have a brain filled with strange trivia and remember things said to me 20 years ago but I’ve watched someone jump a dead battery and deliberately never paid attention. I wasn’t even sure where to begin when I turned on my truck with no result; so, the first thing I considered was going back to the office and asking for someone to come rescue me!

You people who know me probably find this attitude shocking as I’m usually the furthest thing from a damsel in distress. But I’ve never had any interest in cars. In fact, I have anti-interest. I actively avoid car knowledge and mostly just drive and hope everything’s fine.

For example, I remember driving down the highway with Bet when her tire blew out. I said “The first thing is to get as far onto the shoulder as possible!” so she did and then said “OK, now what?” and I said “That’s all I got.” Then someone came by and rescued us.

It’s so girlie.

However, today I felt like I had no excuse because I had a working rental car to use AND jumper cables. Basically, it was time to man up and figure it out.

So I called my friend Eric and he talked me through it. Turns out it’s pretty simple and I had that nice glow of “ta-da!” that comes from doing something I’d never done before. Then I drove my car illegally across town with expired tags because I was afraid it would die if I turned it off and I knew that my rage would know no bounds if I came out to a dead truck after 2 excruciating hours in the DMV trying to get the proper tags.

All of this to say, Jackie’s right. We can do a lot of things we don’t think we can. And as a bonus, this is one time where my “How hard can it be??” attitude actually paid off.