Present Plans

Each year the classes at our Mayberry’s elementary school write and illustrate a class book. Lucy’s class book is titled “When I Grow Up…”. For her page, she wrote “When I grow up I want to be a doctor”. She’s only six but I admit I am already prodding her a bit in this direction. I want her to be able to support me in a manner of which I hope to grow accustom. Her brother already demonstrates a great motivation to help others and to gab with all people he encounters, so I think he’s destined for politics or the ministry. I am likely too much of a liability for a successful politician and those folks don’t look truly happy anyway. There‘s really no money in the latter, so the pressure is on Thing 2 to keep me comfy in cruise line deck chairs.

We were reading her book last night and after a bit of very dramatic discussion about the fact that the picture that accompanied her page was NOT what she drew, we headed to the kitchen for desert. She chose a fortune cookie and chomped away while I read her the tiny strip of wisdom. “Your present plans are going to succeed.” “What does that mean?”, she asked. “It means you will be a doctor just like you wrote in your book.”

“I’m going to go into space.”
“You are? When will you do that?”
Without pausing a moment to contemplate it, Lucy replied, “After I get fired from my job.”
“Really? Why do you think you will get fired?”, I ask.
“For not doing my job right. I don’t really know how to be a doctor.”

Very valid point. Med school and aerospace? That’s pretty big and varied plans for a little girl who throws fits over kindergarten homework. Maybe it’s time to nudge towards acting. That might be a less expensive education and allow her to pretend to be all sorts of exciting things when she grows up. Truth be told, not being a doctor but playing one on TV could very well keep my face lifted and my rear comfortably planted poolside.