Do you have a hobby you aren’t very good at?

Mine is singing. I have always loved to sing, and yes, I am an amazing shower singer because who can deny those acoustics, am I right?

Even though I love music, I don’t play any instruments, and I couldn’t hit a high note if my life depended on it. In fact, no one in my family can sing.

My sister loves to sing and dance, though she is bad at both. When we were kids, she would hog the record player and make me listen to Rod Stewart on repeat. I didn’t just have to listen, no, I was treated to a full-on concert outside my bedroom door, complete with ceiling shaking “dancing.” For years I carried a personal vendetta against Stewart and his music. Truthfully, I should not be commenting on any ceiling shaking as we were both informed by our father that we could no longer do our Billy Blanks Tae Bo work out upstairs for this very reason.

Once, when my sister was driving us home, the song “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor came on the radio. Naturally, she began belting out the lyrics with her customary terrible attempts at something that might be termed opera if one were being overly generous. The windows were down and the construction crew that had been working on our neighborhood’s main road for the last few days were hard at work when my sister flipped on her turn signal. As we waited to turn, she continued to punish me, and everyone else unfortunate enough to be within hearing range. Finally, we turned and as we went by the construction crew, there were no cat calls. Oh no, my sister got the middle finger and a less than politely shouted suggestion to, “Shut up.” It was a truly great moment of vindication.

I have never had anyone have such a valid response to my own painful crooning. Believe it or not, there are people who would actually lie to you and tell you I am a good singer, but I am not afflicted with false modesty. I know my limitations and when it comes to the arts, mine are mostly related to the written word.

I love singing so much I even took Chorus in high school, twice. Chorus led me to the theater where I truly found my home. It proved to be a colossally boring mistake, but I even voluntarily took technical theater where I learned all about lighting, building sets, and costumes. The one good thing that came out of technical theater for me occurred the following year when my teacher selected me as one of the lucky students to be in a new honors theater course my school got the okay to offer.

While in that class, my teacher and I often did not see eye to eye when it came to me writing plays, but even she eventually bowed to my ability. She once told me if I persisted in writing my “Seinfeld” play about a crazy, homeless woman at a bus stop she would fail me because, and I quote, “I do not like Seinfeld, it’s not funny.”

In the end, she not only laughed at my performance, but she also gave me an A and assigned my friend and I to write the original play our class would perform and compete against other schools with from across the state. Despite winning best original play, I still maintain it was an awful play because we were forced to adhere to our cast mates’ suggestions. While I did perform in it, no one asked me to sing.

I can’t emphasize enough how valuable exposing children to something like theater is. It teaches all sorts of life lessons. Learning the art of improvisation helps you to think on your feet, learning to enunciate and how tone affects the meaning of your words develops excellent communication skills. Having to talk, or sing, in front of a crowd of people with a giant, white-hot spotlight shining on you cultivates confidence and comfortability with public speaking. Singing may be fun, but it never taught me all that.