Beech Tree News Network

My sister-in-law, Charlotte, often laments the fact that her boys “don’t know how to do anything”—her words, not mine.  She tells them that they need to learn, because things are going to get much worse.  They tell her if they need to know how to do something, there is a YouTube video that will show them how.  “What they don’t understand,” she says, “is there isn’t going to be a YouTube.”  (I’ve told you before that Charlotte has an apocalyptic view of the future.)

I’ve learned a lot from YouTube tutorials, most recently, the best way to fold a fitted sheet.  The videos were really handy when we owned Valvoline Express.  I’ve reset many a “change oil soon” warning light with the help of a YouTube tutorial.  There are YouTube tutorials on just about everything, including: How To Shoplift, How To Be A Chuckee Cheese Mascot, and How To Get A Snake Out Of Your House.  That last one is interesting.  The guy uses one of those large glue traps—big enough to trap any snake in North America, or so he claims—and he even includes a special section on how to free yourself if you inadvertently get stuck to the trap.  The trick is cooking oil spray.  The most popular YouTube videos—according to YouTube—are How To Unblock A Toilet and How To Plaster A Wall; so maybe Charlotte’s boys are on to something.

The tutorials from which I’ve learned most however, were never videoed, although I wish some of them had been.  Aggie’s tutorial on how to make kraut in a stone crock would be priceless for me today.  I can’t remember all the steps, but I remember layering shredded cabbage, salt and large cabbage leaves, then covering it all with newspaper that I tied around the lip of the crock with baling twine.  I also wish I’d filmed her making the icing for the coconut cake she made for my birthday every September.  I’ve tried and failed miserably to get that icing to come out like she did.  I learned a long time ago that having just the recipe doesn’t always guarantee success.

Some of the most important tutorials I’ve been the recipient of are those that taught me how not to do something or when not to do something.  I’ve learned a few of these from Garey.  The first was “How not to siphon water from a small pool of water, using a hose that is not long enough.  Actually, that tutorial was a two-for, and also included “How not to siphon water from a small pool of water using a hose that is not long enough—in November.”  (I feared I would never be dry or warm again.)  The second was “Never attempt to put tar paper on the outside of a building on a blustery October evening.”

To be fair to Garey, he has given tutorials on useful things like “How to change drill bits in a power drill,” How to tell when a watermelon is ripe,” “How to correctly swing an axe,” and most recently, “How to successfully stop a backhoe that has no working brakes and is rolling downhill.”  (The location of the bucket lever is especially important to this task.)

If your day includes interaction with others, especially children, your life includes tutorials.  You might not be an influencer on YouTube, but you are an influencer to those included in your inner circle.  They might not be walking around filming what you are teaching them, but they are definitely committing it to memory.