Eva Bradley: Even shattering failure has an upside

I've always been a dirty little do-gooder. Whatever I've done, I've had to do well, and if it doesn't come naturally, I give up and move on.

It's never occurred to me for even a moment that there might be any sort of benefit derived from being hopeless at something. Failure, even in the small things, simply can't have any positive downstream benefits, surely?

I was forced to reconsider this view the other night when I asked my boyfriend to help with the dishes. A seemingly innocuous task undertaken by a normally quite capable individual, he didn't just fail at it, he turned the experience into an unmitigated disaster.

Having bored him to tears on another occasion by waxing lyrical about my prized collection of vintage cornishware china, he was better informed about the importance of the dishes he was about to wash than perhaps he might have wanted to be. Especially after he dropped one and broke it.

The silence that roared like a lion from the direction of the kitchen moments after the sound of breaking china told me all I needed to know. It was cornishware circa 1930, too precious even for cursing.

I inhaled. Several times. I reminded myself this wasn't the death of my first-born and went to inspect which piece of the collection had fallen victim to the brutality of a man let loose in the kitchen.

It was a bowl. My heart was in about as many pieces at it was, but I sucked it up and made out it wasn't a big deal. Accidents happen. Things break.

Once.

But when I heard the sound of breaking china less than a minute later, my ability to feel compassion waned.

In fact it's fair to say I was about as dangerous as a bull in a china shop. Except it's best not to mention china. It hurts too much.

After the second break (this time a cornishware mug from the 70s), my boyfriend found himself relieved from washing dishes and assigned a seat on the couch.

As I finished up the job without further incident, I couldn't help wondering how well positioned his slippery fingers had made him. Never again would he have to wash the dishes.

This came in the wake of several dismal attempts at teaching him how to cook (well, in truth the lesson never really got beyond teaching him how to cut a tomato).

The net result was that his failures had put him in the enviable position of not ever having to cook or clean again.

In his defence, this was a fair trade since in all other practical pursuits, including replacing my defective plumbing, he passed with flying colours.

But it did draw my attention to the benefits that could generally be derived from being absolutely crap at something.

There are all sorts of things I hate doing but that I persist with simply because it never occurred to me before that if I made a total hash of them I wouldn't be asked again.

The trouble is now the cat is out of the bag - everyone who knows me knows I can cook, clean, sew on buttons and pimp other people's CVs, online dating profiles and Facebook photos to within an inch of their lives.

From now on, though, the gloves are off: Next time I am asked to do anything even remotely unpleasant, my first thought is not going to be "can I do this?" but "can I get away with doing this really, really badly?"