Robert A. Heinlein wrote:āA human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.ā
Of the tasks on the proverbial Heinlein list, I have never conned a ship, and I have not yet died gallantly. All of the others I have performed. Well, my sonnet sucked pretty god-awfully, but other that that I think I did most of them fairly well.
Dispatching snow plows is, in my estimation, not far off in the skills required from conning a ship, so I think I would do pretty well at that one.
I'm probably one of very few people here who has participated in every step of bringing bacon to the table: tending little piglets, cutting the balls off the males, raising them to adulthood, managing adult pigs, bringing them to the place of execution, facing up to reality and agreeing to perform the dirty deed despite my affinity for the pigs, shouldering that heavy bitch of a Lee-Enfield (I think I was 14 the first time. Man that fucking Lee-Enfield was heavy!) sighting accurately through the tears, cleaning and dismembering the pigs, butchering, slicing meat, making sausages, tying bacon, building the smokehouse, scouring the bush for wood for the smokehouse, camping beside the smokehouse for five days and waking up every two hours to check the temperature, and making delicious meals from the finished product.
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