No Looking Back
The anniversary of 9/11 came and went. I spent my time productively here at Pops' Bucket Global Headquarters with the family flipping channels trying to avoid several horrid insincere schmaltz-fests. I had no particular desire to see political candidates trying to out-mourn one another or to be reminded of three years ago in any direct way at all, if it could be avoided.

I thought I was safe on ESPN watching the SportsCenter, but then the "anchors" dropped out of their obnoxious, punning, catch-phrase manic cycle into pseudo-journalistic depressive in an instant as they introduced the next story. The slow tinkly piano music started and I was trapped.

Frantically scrambling for the remote, my rampant egotism overrode the rising wave of nausea; I heard my name.

"Pops."

I was sure it was God calling. "Here I am," I said. I thought it would score me points stealing Abraham's answer.

But no, it wasn't God. It was ESPN. And they weren't even talking about me. It was about some other guy called "Pops".

It turns out there's this guy Tim Frisby, a former US Army Ranger, who is trying out for the University of South Carolina's football team this year as a walk-on.

Tim is married. He has six children. Two in high school. And he's 39 years old. Hence the nickname "Pops." Oh college athletes. What scamps they are with their jaunty taunts and japes.

Anyway, it was all supposed to be all inspiring and stuff. I was never sure what it had to do with 9/11 (for our English readers, that's September 11, not November 9).

Apparently this is something he wanted "all his life."

And while I certainly would never denegrate the man's service to our country, I couldn't help thinking that that is what he chose to do instead of pursuing collegiate athletics back when he was... you know... college-age.

Again, it's a nice story and I wish him the best, but in the end I was more or less relieved that I am no longer burdened with the unfulfillable dreams of my teenage years. Of course that's easy for me to say, the aimless, shiftless, feckless type. It's not that I had no dreams; the problem was I had so many dreams--goals, daydreams, sleeping dreams, all during high school Chemistry with Mr. Barth--that none were particularly noticeable. So they came and went and here I am, all weighed down by a helium-free real life.

I can only think of one example of something I wanted to be "when I grew up". Like just about every straight male in the whole entire world, there was a brief period of time--just after the onset of puberty usually--where I thought I really really really would like to become a gynecologist. I can remember my reaction when I first realized what a gynecologist was: "You get to look at what all day?"

That particular dream died quickly, though. First of all, I found out that in order to be a legal gynecologist (as opposed to some creep with a chair and a flashlight) you had to go to medical school for ages and ages looking at lots of bloody, messy, oozy things, none of them related at all to the female naughty bits.

A second factor that turned me away from my nearly-chosen path came to me in the form of a metaphorical parable (me and Jesus have that pedantic tendency in common). I supposed I was a fisherman. I would get up at the crack of dawn, put on my fisherman clothes, drive myself to the docks and get on my fisherman boat to go do my fisherman thing. I'd be up to my neck in fish and all things fish related all goddamn day. I'd spend backbreaking hours mucking about in fish, fish-guts, severed fish-heads... Sure, I'd have some good stories to tell the guys about the occasional great, big shiny fish I would catch, but most of them would just be ordinary, ugly, scaly, run of the mill fish not worth mentioning to anyone, anywhere ever; there'd even be some mangled, disgusting ones I'd have to describe antibiotics to and get a detailed sexual history from--NO! Sorry, we're still on fish here.

And the last thing I'd want to see when I got home would be another fish. No salmon filet, no tuna casserole, nothing. I'd probably see fish when I closed my eyes until I'd rather put my eyes out than see another fish.

But see, if I were a gynecologist, instead of fish, I'd be all day in the midst of... you know... that. And I was in no hurry to devalue that for myself by making it the center of my professional life.

But really what did it for me was that my mom is a registered nurse. I found out what a speculum was and what it was used for and that was it. Preserve some of the mystery, please. No, it takes a really special type of pervert (the kind with congenitally cold hands) to go through all that just to become a gynecologist. So ladies, watch out.

Plus I've seen Fever Pitch with Colin Firth about a guy who obsesses over the same thing through his whole life which makes him a completely miserably bastard. I could have read the book by Nick Hornby, but I'd be afraid I'd like it too much and have to read all of his books, which, frankly, I don't have time for.

The summation, then, is as follows: Teenagers, give up your dreams! They will only cause you heartache and embarrassment later on.

Peace out, yo.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.0


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 10:17 PM