Career Opportunities

Conversation with Matt while driving to Easter dinner at Grandma's house.

Me:  If you could do anything you want, what would you do?

Matt: --silence--

Me:  Anything?  Any profession.

Matt:  Hmmm...

Me:  See?  You don't even know?  People always say they want to do whatever they want.  BUT THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT.

Matt:  Have you been drinking?

Me: I only had one..(burp) two glasses of wine.

Matt:  It's not even 3pm.

Me: stares blankly -- So you don't know what you want to be?

Matt:  I kind of always wanted to be an assassin.

Me:  Really?  Me, too!

Matt:  Yeah, that would be cool.

Me: Well, that's what everyone thinks.  But it's not really like that.

Matt: Oh, like YOU know about being an assassin.

Me:  Well, I've thought about it.

Matt:  Where does one learn to be an assassin?

Me: The military.

Matt:  Hmm..

Me: Dude, you need military background.  You need weapons instructions.  You need contacts.  You need top secret government clearance and shit.  Like, you don't meet these people and arms dealers and shit at your kid's PTA meetings.

Matt:  That would be cool, though.

Me:  No, it's not as glamorous as it sounds.  Not like James Bond.  I bet it would be stressful.

Matt: Yeah.

Me: And forget about sleeping.  You'd always need to have one eye open and wondering whose gonna try and shiv you.

Matt:  Shiv you?

Me: Kill you and stuff.  Forget about having a family too.  Nuh, uh.  I think being an assasin would not be very cool.

Matt: Yeah, but you get to kill people.

Me: Yeah, but your employers are probably the very people who DESERVE to be killed.  Not their targets.  It's always these rich, shadowy Dr. No people who hire trained assassins.  You'd be working for total assholes.

Matt: Yeah, probably.  But I do that now.

Me:  Yeah, everyone does.  You obviously did not think this through.

Matt:  I guess not.

We pull up to Grandma's house.  Sena is all ready to receive her second Easter basket of the day.  And I'm ready to eat all the candy in it. 

I look back at Sena, sitting calmly in her car seat, and I wonder how much of our conversation she understands.  More than she can say, I'm sure.

A few years from now I will be able to ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.  Maybe she'll even write an essay about it when she's in school.  What I want to be when I grow up.

And I'll be waiting for that special phone call from her teacher to call me in for a conference.