Day 5 - Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up

Day 5's list is the things I wanted to be when I grew up. When thinking of this list I realized I spent a lot of time playing BY myself (not WITH myself) as a child. I had two older brothers who must not have ever had time for me. I don't think kids these days have to use their imaginations as much as I did.

1). Beautician - what little girl didn't? But did any of you actually cut a big hunk out of the bangs of all the neighborhood kids thinking you actually knew what you were doing? Yeah - my mom got a few angry phones calls on that one.

2). Car Hop - I would ride around my grandparents' concrete patio on roller skates taking fictional orders from invisible people and delivering imaginary food. I thought that would be the coolest job in the world.

3). Gymnast - I never took one gymnastics lesson but again, who didn't want to be Mary Lou Retten? All I really knew how to do was a cartwheel and a round off but I would do "floor exercise" in my front yard. If I fell, I simply pretended that was a planned part of the routine. A gold medal effort every time.

3). School teacher - a tv tray was my desk and all the Teen Beat pinup posters on the back of my bedroom door were my students. Oh, people like Ralph Macchio, John Schneider (as Bo Duke), John Stamos, Shaun Cassidy, probably even Leif Garrett and those Menudo boys. They were good students - never talked back.

4). Travel Agent - not just you run of the mill, trips to Disney World travel agent. No, I used my National Geographic countries of the world card index files to book trips. I cut out slips of paper, made spaces to fill in all the pertinent info like name, dates, cost, etc. I would unplug my pink princess phone in my room to use for all the incoming calls to my office. Same tv tray was again my desk. I would answer a call, fill out a slip and file it behind the card of the country they would be traveling to.

5). Journalist - this only was a thought because of how much I like to write. I only took one journalism class in high school and never tried to write for the school paper because it was all a popularity contest anyway. I was more under-the-radar I guess. I did find out after high school that I poem a wrote for a classmate killed in car accident won a journalism award (as part of the article it accompanied). Too bad another classmate had laid claim that she had written the poem (she asked me to write it) and got credit for it.

6). Marine Biologist - this came from my love of killer whales. I think they are the coolest creature and I wanted to train them. A friend of mine has an uncle who was a trainer and worked with Shamu. OMG - that would be the ultimate! So, I seriously looked into this. I was going to start off at community college and then transfer to University of Southern California since they had a great Oceanography program. In the end, I chickened out. I didn't think I could hack the course study involved so I never tried. That could go on my list of regrets if I do one.

My actual job now that I'm all grown up (am I grown up?) is basically clerical (payroll)...see, all the travel agent detail worked to my advantage. But the best job of all (and it is a job)...MOM.