Career Faire

I attended a career fair the other day so as not to continue wasting my degree. Not that I've tired of modeling, just that I like to see what options are open to one who has a degree in the environmental sciences. I like to see what people are hiring for. Professional curiousity I guess. Anyway, it got me thinking about what people wanted to be when they were kids and how it turned out.

When I was a kid I wanted to be lots of things. Depending on how I felt I wanted to be any of a myriad of careers. I wanted to be a veterinarian for years, from when I was 13 to 17 or so (when I discovered not only do I hate poop and vomit and all that, but that veterinarians have more school to go to than doctors and much of that school involves vivisection...on cute puppies, no less). No one talks about my longest running career ambition though. They talk about my shortest. What I wanted to be one ill fated career day in kindergarten.

We had career day. A few parents came in and talked about what it was like to work in their jobs. We had the usual staples, I don't remember now. A firefighter or police officer, probably a doctor maybe a nurse (women's lib and all, you know). When they were done speaking they sat at the front of the classroom in those little uncomfortable chairs and smiled while we all drew pictures of what we wanted to be when we grew up.

Misses Shapiro collected our pictures and showed each one to the class and the clapping parents, editorializing on each one.

"And Jimmy wants to be....a doctor!"

*clap clap clap*

"And Becca wants to be....a ballerina!"

*clap clap clap*

"And Wren wants to be...." she frowned at my drawing and paused an extra long time, trying to work it out before she concluded, "a rockstar!"

*clap cl-

"NO!"

I stood up, five year old fists clenched in fury at my sides.

"I don't wanna be a rockstar! I wanna be a PROSTITUTE!"

The parents gasped, Misses Shapiro's face twisted in horror.

In mere minutes I found myself in the principals office with my mother being called and a concerned social worker asking me to tell her if anyone ever touched me in my no no spot. She demonstrated with anatomically correct dolls.

"Did anyone ever touch you HERE?"

Nope

"How about heeeere?" She lowered her fingers

Nope

"Not here?" She queried, moving her hands

Still more no. This was starting to feel like a really strange game of Where's Waldo (though I'm pretty sure that hadn't been invented yet) and I was beginning to feel compelled to make something up to please this saccharine sweet lady when she was called out of the room. My mother had arrived, still wearing her nurse's scrubs, nametag still on the front pocket.

They figured that the only way a little kid as young as I was would know what a hooker was would be if that child had been abused or prostituted herself, or had a close relative or family friend who was a prostitute, so I'm sure that my mom received more scrutiny than was fair. In any case, they called me out in a few moments and I -who didn't know what I'd done, simply that I'd done something bad enough that they had to call mom- slouched in the big green naugahide chair, trying mightily to avoid meeting my mom's eyes when the social worker finally lost her cool.

"Miss-ses WREN!" She barked shrilly, "Do youuu know what your daughter said she wants to be when she grows up?"

My mom, irritated at being called from work and totally used to me doing embarrassing and stupid things by now, rubbed her eyebrows and replied with a bored, "I don't know. A dinosaur?"

Upset that no one was taking her seriously the social worker shrieked, "She wanted to be a prostitute!" taking a deep breath she leveled and accusatory eye at mom, "Now whyyyyy. Would she say that?"

Mom squinted at this ***easily irritated*** woman who had interrupted her breadwinning. "Did you ask her?"

The social worker straightened. Asking the child had obviously never occurred to her.

She walked over to me and did that thing that adults do when they're trying to convince a child they're serious. She squatted and took both my hands in hers, meeting me on my eye level and staring searchingly into my eyes.

"Sweetie." She asked, "Why do you want to be a prostitute?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, was THAT what all this was about? Sheesh, that was easy!

We lived in a rough neighborhood outside of DC and every night after mom put me to bed I'd stare out my windows at the hookers on the corner. I wanted to do what they did, which was everything I couldn't. They got to stay up late, dress up pretty and take rides in cars with men.

I thought that they were some kind of driving companion. I'd heard about commuting, perhaps that's what they did, helped people commute. I figured they got paychecks like my parents did.

I explained this all and kept my parents out of big trouble. I, however, was not so lucky when I got home.