Know-How at Thirty

Someone wrote a list AND a book detailing thirty things one should know how to do by the time one reaches thirty. I don’t want to complicate my own list but for consideration here are 30 things one should know how to do by 30:
1. wrap a present
2. start a successful fire in a fireplace, at a campsite, and in a barbecue
3. finish a piece of furniture
4. get a raise
5. order wine at a restaurant without getting stiffed
6. parallel park in three breathtakingly beautiful movements
7. dance a “slow dance” without looking like an idiot
8. use a full place setting properly, including chopsticks and Asian soup spoons
9. clean your place in under 45 minutes, when friends, relatives, or prospective lovers are coming by unexpectedly, and soon
10. hold your liquor
11. cure a hangover
12. do the Heimlich Maneuver
13. use a compass
14. change a flat
15. jump start a car
16. open a champagne bottle
17. send a drink to someone’s table
18. cook one “signature meal”
19. whistle with your fingers
20. take good pictures
21. fold a fitted sheet
22. remove common stains
23. sew a button
24. carve turkey, lasagna, and birthday cake
25. hold a baby
26. change a diaper
27. keep a plant alive for more than a year
28. make dogs and cats love you
29. help someone (an older or ill person, a woman you’re trying to impress, your mother) out of a car
30. write superior thank you notes

Things I am capable of on this list: 1, 2,3, 6,8,9, 10,11,12,13, 14 (theoretically), 15 (although I still ask for help), 16 (someone told me it should sigh like a woman – that I cannot do, but I don't feel intimidated by the prospect of opening a bottle of champagne), I feel that #30 on my own list might qualify as good signature dish for 18, 20,21,22,23,24, 25 I do though not well,26 I can do, 27, 28 (in my mind anyway, dogs and cats love me) and 30.

I am not worried about 4 from this list. My Dad always told me to do what makes me happy and the money will follow. I don’t quite get 5 – what happens when you order wine and get stiffed? I can box step but that doesn’t really pass muster for 7. On 17: it has never occurred to me to send a drink to someone’s table. I am more of a breakfast-out person and somehow sending drinks to peoples’ tables at breakfast is weird...but you never know. I will never be able to do 19. I have tried many times. It just ain’t gonna happen for me. I can practice 25 this summer as KVL is having a baby in a matter of days! I don’t know a technique for 29 but it can’t be that hard to help someone out of car....is this list more for men?