Recently, there have been weeks that have gone by when I have asked myself repeatedly why I bothered to go to college. Now I know what you’re thinking — and don’t get me wrong — of course I know why I went to college.

It’s just that lately, I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t have been better served by a degree in say, home economics, than I am by the liberal arts degree that I obtained in the scholarly field of history.

Last week, for example, I spent several hours dealing with a broken toilet. I am lucky enough to have a diligent superintendent who came to my apartment at least six times on six different days before throwing his hands in the air. “I think you need a new toilet,” he said.

The problem is that it was a fairly new toilet. Instead of bothering to see if it was still under some sort of manufacturer’s warranty, I decided that I was just going to go and buy a new toilet. Since that seemed the tiniest bit irresponsible, I chose to forgo Gracious Home — I would find a toilet at wholesale, I reasoned.

It turns out that was not difficult at all. I got in my car and, admittedly, drove to a ZIP code I had never been to before. But less than $150 later, I had a gorgeous new toilet in the trunk.

“Do I have everything I need?” I asked the sales guy a few times. The toilet was in several different parts with some plumbing thrown into a shopping bag. “Yep, you’re good to go,” he said.

Except that after the super installed the toilet, only my husband was “good to go.”

“Where’s the toilet seat?” I asked my superintendent.

“You didn’t buy a toilet seat,” he said sadly.

Who knew that toilets don’t come with toilet seats? When I called the store, the same salesman was sweet enough to admit, “Gee, I guess I should have told you that you needed a toilet seat. I’ll leave the right model at the register.”

After two trips to the unchartered area, my toilet was complete. I’m sure it was on one of these trips that I wondered if I was maximizing my abilities, and whether it was worth it for me to have slaved away in college, memorizing details from the French Revolution and World War II.

Although I do not remember any of these details that I studied during college, I vividly remember playing one parlor game that provided me with endless hours of entertainment. Over long, boozy dinners, my friends and I would debate, “Would you rather be 10% smarter or 10% more attractive?” Back then, while it wasn’t plain for everyone, it seemed obvious to me — I would rather have been 10% smarter. Who knows what I might accomplish if I was 10% smarter, I wondered.

These days, when I think about that question, all I can imagine is how frustrated I would be if I was driving to pick up the toilet seat while being 10% smarter. Maybe if I were 10% more attractive, though, the sales guy would have lingered around me long enough to remember that I needed a toilet seat.

I feel fortunate to spend a great deal of my days with my children. But I also spend a decent amount of time organizing their closets, opening mail, paying bills, arranging birthday parties, attending school events, escorting children to doctors, cooking, and overseeing various repairs.

And sometimes I think to myself that the skills I really wish I had these days are far from the ones I was taught at college. I wish I were a great cook. I wish I knew how to knit. I wish I knew how to fix the toilet. I wish I knew what to do when my computer crashes, or which button to push when the volume on my television remote won’t work.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate having attended a rigorous college that had a core curriculum, which included a writing course that turned out to be useful in my work after college. Perhaps in a few years, when all of my children are in school full-time, I’ll be using a whole other set of skills that I acquired in college but don’t even yet appreciate.

Until then, though — and I imagine even after — I’ll keep wondering about the home economics class that might have helped my transition into adulthood go more smoothly. The curriculum might include some of the skills I mentioned above, as well as practical skills that I find many teenagers and young adults in their 20s are sorely lacking: how to manage a calendar, how to balance a checkbook, or how to compare airline prices. Even some of the subjects that I imagine were part of the original home economics courses 100 years ago could be included, such as preparing a balanced meal and bathing a baby.

Okay — maybe this updated home economics class, which would be filled with computer-savvy teenagers, doesn’t require the section I desperately need, which is what to do when a PC crashes. Teenagers all have Apples anyway.

sarasberman@aol.com