Filling out all these unemployment forms has me feeling contemplative. Or, maybe it’s this Monroe Mustang album…I don’t really know. Either way, checking-off box after box and providing details about my employment history has dredged up a string of childhood memories.
We all had careers or jobs we dreamt of pursuing when we were younger, some more delusional than others. As I’m sitting here in the frigid living room, scrawling away and trying to remember my first day of work on my last job, I’m imagining how my life would be different if I had followed any my dream jobs…
When I was in pre-school, one of my classes went on a field trip to the local firehouse. The climax of our adventure outside of class was when the firemen said we could climb aboard a real fire truck. At the time, I had nothing against firemen or fire trucks—in fact, “fire truck” was my first word—I just stubbornly refused to join my classmates on the shiny, red vehicle. When asked by the fireman why I didn’t want to join in with my friends, I told him it was because I didn’t want to be a fireman. I told him I wanted to be a dentist.
Me? A dentist? I don’t know…I think of dentists as anal retentive, balding, paunchy Jewish guys who smell funny, wear glasses, and may or may not have a mustache. Maybe that’s just because my childhood dentist fit that description. Anyway, If I were a dentist, I’d still be in school. Eventually, if I was good at it (and in all likelihood I wouldn’t be), my practice would enable me to live comfortably. That is, if I survived dental school—apparently dentists have the highest suicide rate of any profession.
Next I wanted to be a baseball player. To lend perspective on this particular delusion, I’ll tell you I grew up idolizing Darryl Strawberry and Dwight “Doc” Gooden. Which means, had I continued playing baseball past middle school, I’d probably be addicted to crack by now. Also, being underweight and uncoordinated (thanks a lot, genetics), I’d probably never play professionally. Which means, if I was a baseball player right now, I’d be playing in some terrible independent or amateur league, still dreaming of getting my shot at the pros. The coolest part would be telling chicks at bars I was a ballplayer. Maybe I should have followed through on this one…
Instead, I decided I wanted to be an architect. I drew a lot of houses growing up, and was fascinated by construction sites. I think I might have really wanted to be one of the construction workers, but then my mom (in a typical parental control move) told me that the people who designed the houses had the better job. If I was an architect right now, I’d probably hate myself, but I’d live in a nice house with a cool-looking home office or “study”. The only reason I say this is because movies portray architects as family men living in nice houses, perhaps with painstakingly hot daughters. In reality, I know only one architect, and he doesn’t own a house, he just mooches off of friends.
In fourth grade I was gifted my first guitar. And, after that, oh well…whatever. Nevermind.
Throughout high school I wanted to be a computer programmer. My friend Matt used to talk of his brother’s computer-related job as heaven. Large sums of money for short-term contracts, then months of free-time. It could have been profitable, had I been born a few years earlier, but then the the dot-com bust ruined my dreams of getting rich. It was either that, or my inability to simply pass my computer programming class. Those E’s on my report card eventually became really irksome. So I quit. Good thing, too, because nowadays the career of computer programmer is once an overweight, pasty-skinned nerd with dried nacho cheese under his fingernails, who spends all his free time at home, playing an XBox, with posters of Lucy Lawless and Gillian Anderson on his wall. In reality it’s not that different than my life.
Eventually I realized careers were for suckers, and now I’m just looking to marry rich and/or find a benefactor who can pay me while I explore various artistic ventures. I think that’s the career choice I should have decided upon from a younger age, because at this point it’s probably a little late to try and enter into the field.
