When I grow up

No, not a response to that god awful Pussycat Dolls song....




I took dance lessons as a kid, tap for 5 years and jazz for 2, and it really helped me out. Not with grace or confidence or anything, but for those 7 years it gave me a quick and easy answer to the worst question ever "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I think the first time I heard this question was just after I started Grade 1. And even at the time, I thought it was stupid. What the hell kind of response do these idiot adults expect to get?

"Well, I just learned how to print my name, so I'm thinking I'd like to get a doctorate in neurobiology, but I'm also very interested in International Politics, so...I'm keeping my options open. I figure I don't have to pick a major till I'm in Upper Elementary so I have some time to figure things out."

WTF? When you're 5 all you know about the working world is the jobs your parents do (and even at 5 I knew there was no way I was going to be a banker or accountant) and all you know about yourself is that you like cartoons and apple juice. Yeah, lets build a career around that. I had no idea, but I wasn't the snarky little wonder that I am now, and I used to just tell everyone I wanted to be a dance teacher to shut them up. And how sad is it that as you become an adult the only way you can attempt to relate to another human being is by the verbal equivalent of the butt-sniff, so you can rank the other dogs according to pack status.

But I was thinking the other day how horrible it would be if everyone had to stick with the career they'd picked as a child. Here's how it'd go down:

Every single man on earth: Fireman.

90% of women would be princesses, and the other 10% would be in mental institutions thinking they were ponies.