Career Path

Okay, I admit it. I secretly think I’m smarter than most of the population. Please don’t hold that against me, I truly am pretty humble with the rest of my self image. I know that while I feel twenty, I look forty (yes, it’s a FOUR before the zero ... I’m still getting used to it and hope the more I write it the more comfortable I’ll get with it). I realize my rear end has a texture issue. I’ve accepted that my boobs will slip into my armpits if I lay on my back while not wearing a bra. I know that if not for the modern wonders of Crest White Strips and Garnier Nutrisse Dark Natural Blond #70, I would have, in the words of my daughter, “golden teeth and silver hair.” I, feeling that gold and silver should be reserved for jewelry, am religious about using these two products.

Because being smart is on my “Top Ten Things Needed to Succeed in Life List,” I have high expectations for my children’s careers. I think my kids are pretty bright. My daughter in a creative and inquisitive way and my son in a quick-witted and biting tongue way. For the last two years, my daughter has said she wants to be a veterinarian. I think this is hysterical because the child spent the first five years of her life TERRIFIED of any animal on the planet. We had a very unfortunate incident with a live bunny and some Easter pictures the year she was two-and-a-half. Neither the bunny nor my daughter made it out unscathed. But, she’s moved on and I think it’s great she wants to be a vet. We’ll see if I still feel this way if she’s accepted into vet school and the tuition bills start to come. My son on the other hand … well, let’s just say he will probably take a less conventional route. And I’m really fine with that … within reason. I work hard to develop in him a work ethic without boring his free spirit to death. We talk a lot and it’s rare he mentions what he wants to be when he grows up … he’s usually too busy having fun to be concerned with a downer like a career, so I don’t push it. However, he recently brought it up all on his own. Here’s how it went:

Him: “Who is Paparazzi?”

Me: “Who????? Pavarotti? Luciano Pavarotti? Well, he just died recently and he was a world famous tenor. Do you know what a tenor is? We could pull it up on the computer and listen to some of his singing.”

Him: “Mom … Mom, Mom.” (Eye roll.) “I don’t care about some old opera guy. Paaaaa paaaaa raaaaa ziiiiii.”

(He says it real slow so an idiot like me can understand.)

Me: “Do you mean THE paparazzi? Like the guys that chase around all the stars to get photographs to sell to magazines?”

Him: “Yeah, I think so … there are more than one? Do they hide in bushes?”

(At this point I decide after the eye roll that he’s probably not up for the clarification that if speaking of just one it would be “paparazzo” and so by definition “paparazzi” would be more than one.)

Me: “Yes, there are more than one and as far as I know none actually have the sir name “Paparazzi.” Yes, they hide in all sorts of places so they can get pictures of famous people.”

(I’m about to continue this explanation with how I feel like they are parasites and how I secretly delight when one of them gets whacked over the head with an umbrella or their foot run over by a Mercedes, when he cuts across me and says …)

Him: “COOL! That’s what I want to be when I grow up!”

(Silence)

(Finally)

Me: “Well, that would be just super.”