Other kids wanted to grow up to be astronauts, firefighters or doctors. I dreamed I was born the second son of a Landed Lord or a Robber Baron and blew the family fortune on booze and broads and bad ideas…
I wanted to get kicked out of the best prep schools. Impregnate the help, and spend my college fund renting a recording studio to cut an album with my “friends.”
Or maybe take my inheritance and make a a multi-million- dollar movie based on Star Trek the Next Generation fan fiction.
Catch phrase: “Make it solid, number 2.”
I could have been Donald J. Trump without the extreme narcissism that makes him want to rule the world. I just want to bankrupt my casinos and shit on a gold toilet.
But I wouldn’t even care about staying rich. I’d just blow through daddy’s money and leave nothing to my mixed-race, illegitimate children.
Living in the real world
That dream died “young.”
My real-life parents were teachers. It was nothing but gentile poverty, endless effort and ethics.
Fucking honesty — that’s no way to get ahead in this world.
I got my first part-time job at 14. By 17, I had had 4 jobs. Sometimes 2 or 3 at a time.
They saddled me with chores. Mowing an acre in a temperate fucking rainforest with an underpowered, 20-inch used lawnmower.
Sent me to catholic school where the wanna-be nuns beat and belittled me into feeling guilty for just being born. It’s called Original Sin, son.
The worst thing my parents did was keep having kids. They should have stopped at 3. That’s me.
But noooooo. They had two more hungry humans with needs. Food, shelter, transportation and a psycho-social sense of belonging. It all had to be shared.
Despite their best efforts, I still had dreams of being the black sheep. At least I could have been a burden on those god damn siblings.
I had made a fine art of laziness. I could stay in bed till noon and get up only to nap on the couch.
Maybe I could do booze and broads and bad ideas on a budget. The homeless seem happy.
Then I met the Bear. Married a teacher. Shit. 30 (plus) more years of gentile poverty for me.
Worse, the Bear’s on a mission to help poor kids. She won’t teach at an A-rated school. If the percentage of free-lunch kids falls below 70, she gets nervous and starts looking for another “failing” school where she can pump up the test scores with hot Cheetos and sodas.
That shit ain’t cheap.
Teachers not only come with endless work and ethics. They have a particular set of skills to crush any boyhood dream: Behavior Modification.
She has spent 30 years assigning carrots and sticks until I don’t even think about other women. Well, not quite. I’ll look, but I won’t even bother to talk to them or learn their names. It’s just easier.
She’s modified my bad ideas until I’m happy just typing out rants on the internet for the bored. (That’s you in case you couldn’t guess).
Out of all my childhood dreams, I’m down to one: booze.
Even that is rationed by responsibility, job and family. Rations got cut since the Bear can’t drink as much as she used to. Meds, acid reflux and red wine don’t mix.
But now I have a new dream. Instead of daddy’s money it will be the state’s — as in the Arizona state retirement fund.
In a few years I can quit this shit, throw away most of my chores and blow through what’s left of the taxpayers’ money.
I don’t plan on leaving anything to my quarter-Italian, legitimate son. He better be nice to his mama.
Booze and bad ideas are back baby. Thanks to all of you for paying for it.
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Categories: Stories of Akron
Thanks for making me laugh this morning! I hope the time flies for you, Kieran. And you get to enjoy that retirement for many years to come.
Deb
glad to hear someone found it funny… the wife’s words were pathetic and sad.
Enjoyed that. It reminded me of my own strange boyhood dreams. While everyone else idolized people like Dragnet, and Hero cowboys, the early G-Men, I heard about Willie Sutton. While a lot is just made up I found out later, before that he was the perfect hero. He could crack any safe. There were stories of some little girl trapped in a time lock safe and she would die if she didn’t get out and nobody knew how to open the damn thing. Willie Sutton was escorted from prison and saved her life by cracking that safe. He was supposedly a skilled forger and, with the nickname “the actor,” had escaped from prison through a variety of ways. When asked “why do you rob banks (he didn’t ‘rob’ them) he said “because that’s where the money is. Finally, he was put into an escape proof prison. While escorted down to his cell, an assistant reportedly said “Let’s see you try to get outta this one, smart guy.” He replied, “Please, I’m very old now and don’t feel up to doing that again. Please don’t tempt me.” The warden admonished the guard, saying, “When Mr. Sutton considers this escape proof, he will so inform you.” Sutton breathed a sigh of relief and said to the warden “Thank you.” The warden said “You’re welcome”
Nice. My other hero was Benedict Arnold. The inventor of free agency in America…
Strange thing about retirement–many new retirees all of a sudden get all kinds of ideas about things they always wanted to do. Then before they know it, they’re busier than before they retired. It happens to me once in a while. There’s a discipline to laziness that must be maintained in order to avoid the stress and strain of endless work.
I’m well versed in lazy.
I have been collecting entitlement checks for 10 years. I did some high school coaching in the beginning. Then I figured out I could live like a teenage again. A teen with money. It’s better than the first time around.
Looking forward to it.
Retired teacher here. Miss the kids, not the parents or the admin. Gentile poverty in retirement is a hell of a lot better than gentile poverty working 80 hours a week. At least the coronavirus has reminded parents that teachers aren’t just people who couldn’t do anything better with their lives.
Yes. Let’s hope that idea lasts longer than a few weeks after schools reopen.