When I grow up

I know this is something that everyone does throughout their childhood but I cannot remember a time when I didn’t have a career plan as ambitious as the Bertie Bowl. I was never keen on being an astronaut or a fireman, I’m not the sort of person who would risk his life/eyebrows to expand the realm of human knowledge or rescue someone’s coffee maker from a fiery inferno. But I did take a liking to a few of the classics and some unusual ones, so I will share some of the more interesting examples with you now. It goes without saying that when I was a child I loved toys. Of course, everyone is the same. I also wanted to work in a toy shop. Why not? It was a source of endless pleasure when you went in to pick out some toys and drive your mother to seriously consider buying some lime and a shovel on the way home. I didn’t see any problem with that logic. Until I actually got a job in a toy shop. I won’t dwell on it, suffice it to say that those ten months aged me forty years and if I never see another child again it will be too soon. Usually whenever the 25th of December comes around I immediately regress to the mindset of an eight year old but that Christmas drove me to the edge of insanity. Amen to the recession. Another career I dreamed of embarking on was an American professional wrestler. Yes, it’s a tad homoerotic and yes, ten year old boys will have a liking of you which is not exactly desirable. But seeing tens of thousands of fans staring in amazement as you leap from the top rope onto a prone opponent to become the champion of the universe at Wrestlemania seems like a pretty sweet deal. Last week I watched the film The Wrestler with the expectance of a Rocky-style glorifying of the profession. Nope. He cuts his own head with a hidden razor for blood ‘effects’. No thank you. I’m not any way squeamish but the day I deliberately cut myself for the entertainment of mindless plebs will be the day Michael Jackson goes on his worldwide successful comeback tour and backyard theme parks are all the rage. Enough of the sit-ups and steroid taking, that one’s out. The idea of pursuing a career in archaeology was one of my more practical ambitions. I won’t lie to you, I saw the Indiana Jones films (there are only 3 of them and anyone who says otherwise is getting a crystal foot where it hurts) and promptly went and bought the hat. I couldn’t however get the whip, for some reason the shop I went into only stocked ones with pink furry handles and the other archaeologists would have mocked me had I shown up with one of those. Once again, to my utter disappointment I realised that archaeology is less about swinging over ancient traps and Holy Grails and more about crouching for hours dusting a stone and finding a coin that Grigor the Viking dropped one day while on the lash. If I spent 30 years of my life searching for broken Roman pottery and considered it a success when I found an 18th century breadknife, that would be the 18th century breadknife of my undoing. From this you could be forgiven for thinking that all of my dreams have been crushed and I spend my time huddled in a corner watching one of the three Indiana Jones films, secluded from society. But not so. The idea of becoming a rock star is still one which graces my mind every time I hear the mind bending guitar solo in Aerodynamic or the drumming at the end of In the Air Tonight. There are a few drawbacks with that, as with everything else. The necessary copious amounts of cocaine would bring my life expectancy down to 28 and I can’t technically play an instrument, but these are small barriers compared to me becoming the first black president of Ireland. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever be the lead guitarist of a world renowned rock band. But imagining it while I take the dingy 221 bus to town every morning doesn’t hurt anyone. And as long as I make my career doing something which interests me every single morning, I won’t mourn the fact that I’m not driving my GTX1 dream supercar.