DP: I Got [99] Skills... but Good Grammar Ain't One

The Daily Prompt asks, If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick?

Shouldn’t bloggers obviously pick the obvious? Writing, right? Only…

ANY skill in the world. Mine. And not just the sort that I can sort of do and not wholly embarrass myself. I could gain ‘master’ status. Hmmmm….Silver smith?  It would be rather handy (and lucrative) to make jewelry, serving trays, bud vases. Seamstress? No. Gardener? Ah, I must admit, this one really tempts me. Successfully grown vegetables in their various seasons, profusions of blooms in the various beds around the house. Mmmm. I do like that one. Master chef? Meh. I do okay in the kitchen. And I’ve already achieved highest honors in sarcasm, so…

Let’s face it. Most of us can put a few words on paper, coordinate our accessories (if not make them ourselves), sew on a button, throw some water on the ferns and fry an egg. (Actually that last one is harder than it looks…) Sarcasm simply bruises tender feelings and should be avoided all together. (At least, that’s what my principals kept telling me in my teaching evals, though I often chalked up their criticisms as a secret admiration for my superior wit.)

If I am unwilling to renounce my sarcastic bent (I am), it seems only fitting then, that I would choose a skill that might mitigate the wounds inflicted by sharp words delivered in a biting tone. As Congreve noted, “music hath charms to soothe the savage breast…”; therefore, to master the tickling of the ivories and be a pianist of such skill as only few attain? That is the one.

Words. Food. Music: 

“If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:”  (from Twelfth Night)

Shakespeare never disappoints, does he?