I Can Teach Anything To You, But I Can't Teach That

My name is Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, and I have a dirty little secret.

I know this will come as quite a shock to all of my bloggy admirers, but Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has a weakness. An Achilles heel. A glass jaw. A trick knee. A Waterloo. That last one might be the most definitive example of my problem. What, I ask you, was Napoleon doing in Iowa?

My name is Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, and I am a geography nincompoop. I am unworldly. About the only locations of which I am knowledgeable are the seven continents, and the fifty U.S. states. Oh, sure. I know Mexico is our neighbor to the south, and Canada is our best friend to the north. Right, Canada? We're still good, right?

I refuse to take the blame for my own ignorance. My formative years were spent in junior high and high school history and geography classes with coaches. Football coaches. Basketball coaches. Coaches not overly invested in seeing that the pubescent future Mrs. Hillbilly Mom received adequate training in the partitioning of the landmasses of the earth. I can sketch and explain the particles of an atom, I can diagram a buttload of sentences with one hand tied behind my back, I can solve an equation for x in terms of y, I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan. I am reasonably competent in who, what, when, and why. It's the where that stumps me. Woe is the trivia team who must rely on Mrs. Hillbilly Mom in the category of geography. She is more likely to answer a sports question right. And that is saying something.

The topic of my imbecile-iness came to a head on Friday. I got into a discussion with The Pony on the way to my mom's house. "Since when did England become an island? I saw it on the news, about a deserted Russian cruise ship full of cannibal rats that was going to hit England." Okay. So I really read about it on the UK Daily Mail. Same thing.

"What? You didn't know England is an island? And you call yourself a TEACHER?"

"I don't teach about England. I teach science."

"How can you not know that!"

"Well...I had coaches for geography teachers. We didn't even have books! All we did was talk about football games. Not us girls. But the teacher and the guys."

"You're an adult. I can't believe you don't know that. Haven't you ever heard of the British Isles?"

"Yes. But I didn't think England was an ISLAND! I thought it was just other parts. Like Scotland and Ireland, that were the islands."

"Are you serious? Scotland is part of England!"

"But Ireland is an island?"

"Yeeesss."

"Then what about those bombings with Northern Ireland fighting England?"

"They weren't fighting England! They are part of England!"

"WHAT? Then why were they fighting? You mean the Queen is in charge of Northern Ireland, too?"

"Yeeesss. Northern Ireland was fighting Ireland."

"So Northern Ireland is protestant and Ireland is Catholic?"

"Yeeesss."

"That's news to me. I thought Ireland and England were right next to each other, like with a border to cross."

"I can't talk to you anymore!" The Pony stuck out his arm, palm facing me, in dismissal.

It only got worse after I dropped him at Mom's house, and took her for a ride. "Did you know that The Pony made fun of me because I didn't know England was an island? One little thing I don't know, and he acts like I'm stupid or something."

"You didn't know England was an island! Haven't you ever heard of the British Isles?"

"Of course I've heard of the British Isles. I thought England was attached to Europe, and you could take the train to other countries, and spend your Euros wherever you wanted."

"Haven't you heard of the English Channel?"

"Yes. And I know there's a train that goes under there, and that people swim across it. But I thought it went off the west coast of England, which is attached to Europe."

"No! The English Channel is between England and France."

"What? Why wasn't I told that? I thought England and France were side by side. On Europe. And even though I know people swim across it, and that it's not possible, I always pictured the English Channel as being between the west coast of England, and the east coast of North America. Wait! Don't! I KNOW people can't swim across the North Atlantic, and that you can't take a train under it either. That's just how I pictured it. Stop!"

Mom was laughing as hard as when she saw my new driver's license photo for the first time. Sweet Gummi Mary! You'd think people could be more considerate of the feelings of those of us who are geographically challenged.