Narrowing It Down

I was listening to a rock & roll radio station this morning while getting the kids ready for school and I couldn't help noticing the DJ's laugh. He was interviewing a comedian who was making silly jokes and the DJ was guh-huh guh-huhing every other 3 seconds. It reminded me of college and how my housemate my senior year loved Bob & Tom out of Indianapolis and she'd listen to them faithfully and I'd have a single thought running through my mind: This Is Stupid. Not that I am incapable of stupid, please, just not that type of stupid. It was then I decided that I will never be a morning host of a rock & roll radio station.

I came to a similar conclusion once watching a show about North Atlantic deep sea fishermen, only this realization led me to another even greater enlightenment: There Is A God. There is no way (and this is a very scientific conclusion) that evolution could lead to a handful of people thinking it natural for them to be rolling around in an open vessel surrounded by enormous walls of water on freezing cold rough seas for weeks at a time. For fish. Think about it. That is all the proof I need that there is a God and it makes me love Him all the more. Because there is NO WAY on His green earth that I am getting on a boat and facing that sort of hell on earth. But I like salmon and cod. So I thank the Lord above that He made people like that.

I could totally do menial smelly work though. I'm not above trash collector or house cleaner (I've even done the latter once or twice.) I've cleaned out chicken coops and barns, I've mowed acres happily. I've torn ivy out in patches so large people just shook their heads and chuckled, there's no way you're gettin' rid of that ivy pulling it out on your hands and knees. But I did. So, it's true, I don't mind dirty work or fishy work, because if fishermen were in boats on shallow warm waters, say waist deep, I'd happily join them.

I don't think politics are my future, but that's not quite as absolute as the deep sea fisherman - I simply will not do that! Ever! But politician I could imagine remotely because there are issues that concern me and I suppose I could possibly be coerced or convinced to stand up and try to address them. But the other side of politics where people jockey for power and position and personal gain - ugh. I'd probably get nasty and sarcastic in the scuffles and people would end up hating me and making me resign. I'd die a bitter old failure of a woman. I'd be better off starting out on the other side as a revolutionary or rebel with a cause...I think I might be better at destruction than construction.

Accountant. Banker. Stock exchange thingy person. Never. Never. Never. I knew at an early age, 14, that math was not in my future. My Freshman year Algebra 1 teacher called me to his desk and showed me my grade - F and said, "I'm sorry, Jen" and I thought to myself, "Um, helloooo, Mr. Billingham! I can't do math! Duuuh." He just didn't know what I was incapable of, but it was very clear to me. My husband does the checkbook. "Keeping books" exists for me only in the literal sense, in a bookcase. Accountant ain't gonna happen, you can count on it.

How about those people who run heart and lung machines during surgery? What, do they have nerves of steel? Another person's very existence hangs precariously above their heads for hours at a time and they're not writhing on the floor in an all out panic attack? I'd run like lightening from that job, straight off the pier, diving headlong onto a deep sea fishing boat. I don't even like driving other people's kids.

Back to money, I don't think anything having to do with gambling could ever be in my life. Like, I'd never work at a card table in Atlantic City or own a casino or be a professional card player. Oh, that goes without saying if you know what happened to me back when my father-in-law (cut-throat card player) was alive. He actually made me cry playing Hearts, I can't play the game to this day. Get this - he thought I should actually have some idea what the other people at the table were holding in their hands! I know, I thought he was nuts too. My hand was nicely ordered by colors and numbers and my favorite pictures, etc, why should I care what the others were doing with theirs? And have you ever been in a casino? The noise, the ringing, the bells, the jingling and jangling, the lights and flashing...I become immediately brain dead in all that stimulation. Then there are the people who look like they actually are brain dead, sitting at a machine pushing a button over and over, emotionless, pasty, not even hopeful anymore. It all gives me the willies.

Roofers. Who do they think they are? They walk on slanted surfaces stories high with cigarettes hanging and hammers hanging and they're talking and laughing and carrying things. They are the living examples of the power of positive thinking. So, I can't.

I don't think I could be a personal assistant unless the person I was assisting was doing something I believed in. I wouldn't mind running out for iced lattes for Einstein or Mother Theresa or David Sedaris, but Britney Spears or some other Hollywood frivolity, no. With the exception of Benecio Del Toro, Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, um, the guy who produces those scary haunted house shows on cable, the entire cast of Juno...

Puppeteer. Why? Why do they exist? And I know a puppeteer, a professional puppeteer who is a rather famous character on PBS and he's an awesome dude. But I just don't get puppetry. Never have. And that's why I run from any church volunteer requests for evangelical puppetry. I cannot imagine how anyone from 0 - 100 could be saved by watching a puppet show. This performing art may just be the original source of the saying: To Each His Own.

And so, these are but a few of the many things you will not catch me doing. Now, since this little post is through, I should now probably join my hubby in the renovation of our bathroom. And after I do, I may add a post script called Things You Will Never Catch Me Doing Again.