Saturday, July 22, 2006

Career Day

When did you know that you wanted to do what you want to do?

It took me a while. I was so intent upon being an astronaut it never occurred to me, right up until high school algebra hit me directly in the face, that NASA would probably prefer crewmembers who do not require their fingers as addition and subtraction aids. I didn't consider writing as a career, know that I needed it as a career, until late in high school.

My mother, she knew earlier. The summer of 1987, I believe. This was when I won an essay contest sponsored by our local Waldenbooks in honor of Father's Day: "What My Dad Does At Work."

Nowadays, of course, this sort of thing would invite a lawsuit, but I put on my rock necklace and busted out my erasable pen and got to work. I think my dad still has it framed somewhere. I'm pretty sure I used the gift certificate of a prize to buy something literary and mind-expanding like a Betty and Veronica comic book.

I look at this photo and notice, to my horror, (the bangs/magenta shirt/yellow shorts statement is a separate horror altogether) that my full name and address were included on the entry, and placed on display for every child molester in town to examine in detail. (I also rode around the West side in the tailgate of my mother's Wagoneer. I swear, I don't know how we're all alive.) This little one... she has no concept of the rejection slips, the weeping over health insurance, the desk-slamming, the clicking of the computer keys. I was in High Astronaut Phase at this point.

My mother, though-- she knew.

moms are like that at: mb@blondechampagne.com

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha...my mother wrote my name and address on all of my clothes...and my lunchbox...and my backpack...until I went away to college and she let me write my own name and address on all of my clothes. I guess my mom wanted to make extra sure that all the creepy men knew where we lived.

Anonymous said...

When I was 5, I was snapped on the way home from the beach, topless as only a 5 year old can be, complete with pail and shovel. The local papers (all 57 million of them) ran that picture on the front page b/c of a heat wave. They listed my full name and address in the caption. A topless 5 year old with what is essentially a road map to molestation paradise ran on the front page of every newspaper in the county. I'm still amazed I'm not dead.

Anonymous said...

Since the age of 13 (prior to CSI, and the like) I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. THEN, I realized all of the school involved (med and law school). Umm, yeah. Maybe I'll be an assistant, but there's NO WAY I'm doing all of that!!

:P

Anonymous said...

I am 33 years old, married with three children and I never did figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have just about decided to give up on that and just torture my kids about what THEY are going to be....

AHHHHH.. the privileges of parenting!

Anonymous said...

Kristi, you just happened to find yourself in the most important job in the world: Mommy. One I am incredibly ill-equipped to carry out, so kudos to you.

Did I mention to you guys that my parents attached LUGGAGE TAGS with our full home addresses to me and my sister when we traveled? I asked her about it recently and she said, "Well, we never lost you anywere, did we?"

Anonymous said...

On a slightly related note, remember when playgrounds used to have things like woodchips and metal equipment that got really hot in the sun? Now everything is made of plastic with rounded corners and they put fine grain sand or that squishy foam stuff down for ground cover. Where's the fun in that?

Anonymous said...

Hee! I burned the backs of my legs many a time on the slide outside of the Cheviot Public Library. Didn't they find out that those chips caused baldness in tree squirrels or something ridiculous?

ShannJ said...

Hey, at least Cheviot had a slide to burn your legs on. We always went to Westwood. No slide. Boo. :)

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