Do You Know Someone Who Feigns Incompetence?

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I think my title is self-explanatory, but I am going to tell you my definition of what a person acts likes who suffers from this disorder just to make sure we have no confusion. The symptoms of Feigned or Practiced Incompetence seem to be brought on when the person afflicted with this disorder is asked to do simple tasks by a loved one.  They appear confused, befuddled, and unable to complete the task at hand even though they have been fully trained by the requestor.  They can be wily and self-serving and usually appear hard of hearing. People with this disorder come in all shapes and sizes. You may be married to one, given birth to one, or even live with someone with this problem. They can be armed and dangerous when asked to pitch in or multi-task. Please use caution when dealing with these individuals.

Has anyone ever seen the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where Ray tells Robert to start doing things wrong so that Amy (his wife to be) stops asking him to help and just does it herself? Ray has a whole system designed to get out of helping around the house.  A couple of years ago at our family beach vacation, my brother-in-law broke the man code and admitted he has a system called Practiced Incompetence that has over the years worked quite nicely for him in getting him out of household duties.  I once saw him pack their van for their trip home from our house, while my sister-in-law was on the phone handling work business.  When he finished packing, half of their stuff was still sitting in our driveway when he declared he couldn’t get anything more in the van. He had this Practiced Incompetence thing down to an art form.  After a while, my sister-in-law happened to look out the window during the call, saw the results of his efforts, promptly cut the call short, and uttered a very bad word, using it as both a noun and an adjective, in some very loud sentences. They ended up borrowing our car top carrier for the ride home and I don’t think I have ever heard my brother-in-law asked to pack the van again.

Well, last night, yet again, we played our own version of this game. For many years now, my husband has always been the last one to come to bed. I used to ask every night, “Did you lock all the doors?” Almost every night after I asked the question, he would get this perplexed look on his face like this is the first time he had ever heard such a thing needed to be done and say, “I think I locked the doors.”  Now, I am not a detective, but I have watched enough episodes of Monk to know that when a person uses the word think in a sentence, hesitates while answering, avoids all eye contact, and has a look akin to a deer caught in the headlights plastered on his face, there is not a chance in you know what the door is locked and he knows it.

This theory has proved correct 90% of the times I have gotten up to double check that the door is indeed locked, although the jury is still out about the basement door that was technically locked one night, but still ajar. Once, I asked him how he would feel if an intruder got in through the unlocked door and kidnapped me and he never saw me again all because he forgot to lock a stupid door.   He pretended he was crying and said he would be very sad, but he and my daughter were high fiving each other and dancing around.  All I know is if someone breaks in and kills us, the last words my husband is going to hear as he is heading for the white light will be, “I told you to lock the damn door!

Which finally brings me to my point. My dogs have a routine. Every night, without fail, I walk the dogs after dinner. I am like the postman; I get the job done in all kinds of weather. If they don’t get this walk, it is a very long night because Vern is relentless in coming around and letting you know we did not follow the schedule. We have discussed this on end about how important that nightly walk is for our mental health and Vern’s well being. On some Thursdays, I meet friends in another town for dinner and my husband is home with the dogs.  Last night I got home and said, “Did the dogs get their walk?”  “What walk?” he asked and told me he had played with them instead.  Houston, we have a problem! I have tried to tell him before that kids and/or dogs do not really call “watch Daddy read a book” playtime and to come up with something else that actually makes them tired. Fudge and Vern were all but standing by my van holding their leashes and poop bags, so I loaded them up and took them to the park. 

Later that night, we had a terrible storm.  Again, my husband is the last one to come to bed.  Every single night, he comes to bed, turns the light out, and within 30 seconds Vern is beside the bed and has to go out for his last potty of the night. One night, I asked him why he didn’t take the dogs out right before he came to bed and he said, “when did we start doing that?” I calculated backwards in my head and said, “We brought Fudge home on 3/13/09, so we started doing it on 3/13/09,” and he looked shocked. This particular night, probably because he was lulled to sleep by the high winds, thunder, and tree branches banging against our windows, he was able to fall asleep in that 30 second window from the time he turned the light out to Vern’s nightly reminder that he needed to go out.  It was a miracle how his deep sleep coincided with that storm. Vern, meanwhile, was not taking no for an answer so it was left to me to brave the weather and get him outside.

Luckily, we were able to dodge the falling limbs and I weigh too much for the high winds to carry me away, because I knew no one inside our bedroom was ever going to admit to anything and come looking for me if I didn’t return. If something had happened, I could see the morning headlines now, “Woman Found Crushed by Tree in Storm. Husband Still Faking Sleep when Police Arrived.”  When I got back to our bedroom sopping wet, I thought about standing over top of him and yelling, “I won the wet T-shirt contest!” but I was too wet and tired and just knew he would say something like, “why are you all wet?” in his sleepiest sounding voice.


Well, I took some notes and one night when my husband and I sat down to dinner, he asked what I was calling this dish we were about to eat.  I said, “How about Blackened Chicken?” and he said, “How about going out to dinner?” and I said that sounded great. I think with more practice, I am going to get the hang of this Practiced Incompetence thing down.

[Barbie]

@ Karen, Deanna, and Laurie: My guy is bad about leaving me no toilet paper on the roll either ... well, unless you count the piles of it all over the floor. Yup, that's my guy ... lil Zeus Doodle. After reading some of your posts, it makes me all the more content that I'm single. LOL!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Jane, You can still be crazy about someone who has this problem. Often times, they are good at making you laugh too and very sweet :) They are like bad doodles...still very cute, but oh boy!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Jane (Rooney & Stuart), What a crack up about your DH and laundry? I think he must be very good at his job....LOL!!

Janel, Thank you! Keep practicing and you will get there!!

Thanks, Joyce!

Lucy and Sophie's Mom, I think you might be on to something. I have a new theory....people that have this disorder find people to be with that are Type A and not great at delegating jobs. This is me....I can do it better myself and he knows if he messes up once, I will do it in the future. I guess, this is a clever way to say I am an enabler. Oh boy :)

Thanks, Allyson!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Jane, I had started this blog last week on Friday after having to take Vern out in that awful weather. I read your "Vacation from Hell" discussion this weekend and knew my timing was perfect. My daughter made a dessert one time and it said to cover with plastic....so she covered the pan with plastic, put the ingredients on top, put it in the oven and baked it and then asked my DH, "where did the plastic go?" when she pulled it out of the oven. She still hates cleaning and housework of any kind. Very funny. It sounds like we raised the same girl :)

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Deanna, The toilet paper roll strikes a nerve here too. Awww...the joys of finding one square still on the roll. LOL

I must admit my DH was an excellent diaper changer.

[Deanna & Desi & Cori]

My husband's a great guy - makes the coffee, does his own laundry, etc. - but he is guilty of the classic Feigned Incompetence act: diaper changing!  When my daughter was a baby, he messed up so badly on his first diapering attempt (cloth diapers, diaper pins - you get the picture) that he was never allowed to touch a diaper and the baby at the same time.  Fast forward 30 years, he's just as "incompetent" in diapering the granddaughter.

@ Karen - regarding toilet paper roll changing: Here, my husband is extremely competent - at leaving just enough paper on the roll (maybe as little as one square) to be able to claim that the roll wasn't really "empty" yet, thus avoiding the apparently near-impossible task of changing it!

@Jane (in Florida) - awww, what a guy.  Glad he'll stay to protect you!

[F, Calla & Luca]

You are pretty funny too , Karen.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I am related to several people who have not managed to figure out how to replace a roll of toilet paper or paper towels on the holder. For many years, this made me feel quite proud that I possessed an apparently rare talent.

Thanks for bursting my bubble, Laurie. ROFL.

[Carol and Banjo]

Love it! Love it!   Never a truer tale told Laurie!     I always enjoy the line about "playing with them".     DH and I also have a different concept of time....I've actually timed his 45 minute walk by a real American Made clock and oddly enough it timed out to 7 minutes.      So happy to hear you survived the storm Dorothy!

[Adina P]

I'm SO buying your memoir when it is published :) A close blood relative of mine, who shall not be identified commutes to and from Los Angeles daily. This relative has become competent at navigating LA traffic over the past year without difficulty or panic. But when s/he visits me in my farm town looks like I'm asking her/him to do open heart surgery when I suggest s/he take my car and drive to Wal Mart...which is a 5 min drive down our street plus a left and right turn. Barely any traffic ever.