How the hell is anyone supposed to answer that? The first time I heard the question at the office, I groaned and asked my boss, “Is this one of those ‘what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up’ meetings?”
“Yeah, sorta” she responded after a second.
“Look,” I told her. “I’m just going to give you the same answer I gave my high school guidance councilor. It’s the same thing I wanted to be since I was four: Crime-Fighting Dinosaur. Can I go back to work now?”
Needless to say, I didn’t get along well with my guidance councilor. Actually, she might well have been the most hypocritical, two-faced, useless person ever to draw air. She once confronted someone from our school and asked if he had ever done drugs. He answered, “uh…yeah, a few years ago I smoked pot a couple times.” She promptly made arrangements to have him expelled if he didn’t go to rehab. Then she called the parents of all his friends and told them not to let their kids hang out with this “junky.”
As charming as all that sounds, however, my defining memory of her will always be this:
She had arranged for a bunch of pointless, uppity liberal arts schools to send representatives to come and speak to our class in 11th grade. So every few weeks another guy in a sports coat would come and explain how Oberlin students really “followed their souls to education.” Really? Because during college my soul was leading me to sleep with as many women as possible, while under the watchful eye of Professor Jack Daniels.
At any rate, we were allowed to skip classes to attend these propaganda sales pitches. So, in a desperate attempt to skip 4 period French, I tried to enter a meeting. There were already perhaps 10 people in the room, when Mrs. “I’m watching Out for Your Future” blocked my way. “Ehren, you can’t come in here.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “I’m genuinely interested in Middle Upper Ivory Hawthorn College.”
“Back to class, Ehren. They don’t want your kind here.”
To this day I have no idea what she meant by “my kind.” I’m going to assume she meant people with huge cocks.
I’ve decided that my life is way too hectic to be planning out five years down the line. How the fuck should I know where my path will lead me? I imagine that by then I’ll have been fired. I’m not sure for what yet, though. I keep going back and forth between “Assault with the paper-cutter” and “Sex on the boss’ desk during my lunch break.” But like I said, I guess I won’t know for certain until I get there.
I’ve found that a lot of people like to make plans for way down the road. Women in particular like to ask “do you think we’ll get married someday?” or something to that extent. My answer is usually, “Yeah. But 5 years ago I thought I’d be an international Rock Star by now.”
And it’s not intended as a slam against them. Because I’m not being insincere. I’ve just always found that my life takes some very strange right turns. Example: I currently work for a fairly substantial internet company that in turn is owned by an enormous corporation. You know where I worked before this? I DROVE TRUCKS. Before that? I worked in a library. Before that? I built guitars.
I guess I’m not good at plans. Or maybe, my life doesn’t seem to follow plans well.
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