Everyone has dreams. And some of the dearest of those are the ones we hold for our children. We all hope our children will grow up to be successful and happy, and maybe even want to take care of us when we get old. Some of us expect more than others, and some fling themselves off the deep end and strong arm their offspring into creepy pageants and talent agencies, but that's a whole other can of worms. I, myself, ask very little of my son in terms of his future. All I want is for him to be kind, to find and follow his passion, and live his life with a sense of purpose. All he wants is to be...Dale Gribble.
Yep. You heard me right. The crazy guy from King of the Hill.
Arlo has wanted to be many different things over the years. I kinda liked it when he wanted to be Stephen Hawking, but that didn't last. And I don't suppose sitting around wanking intellectual about bullshit physics pays that well for anyone else, so I can let that one go. Paleontology, similarly, sounded like a lot of tuition to cough up so he could spend the rest of his life pleading for grant money to pay the rent. And we all went through that phase, anyway, didn't we? But a scrawny, paranoid, chain-smoking exterminator?! That one came straight out of left field.
I understand that my son has a hard time with social intricacies, but even when I pointed out that Dale was created by writers to sound as stupid and crazy as humanly possible, and that no one took him seriously, and that even though he got a lot of laughs, they were the wrong sort, the at you sort...he persists. He even filters current events through Dale's perspective, coming up with new and thoroughly ludicrous conspiracy theories, which drives me batty when there are so many perfectly legitimate ones out there already (Chertoff nudie scanners, anyone?). This persona-borrowing isn't new to me, I remember doing much the same thing in my own childhood when I realized that my peers weren't responding terribly well to my natural self (or my truly awesome Pee Wee Herman impression). But I remember trying to learn to laugh like the pretty girl at the next table, or to be different yet indomitable like Anne of Green Gables. I always wanted to be the leading lady. I suppose he may identify with Gribble's outsider status. It may be that he feels no one takes him seriously and finds a sense of kinship there, which makes me sad. We've always encouraged Arlo to be himself, even if his true self needed to bone up a bit on social graces, we've always stressed that he didn't have to change who he was to get along in the world. Especially not by changing into a cowardly, conniving comic foil for a no-fanny propane salesman.
I tried to give him a reality check by explaining that sometimes jobs can sound cool, but when you stop and think about what the actual, all-day-long work is like, you may change your mind. I love to cook, I explained, and at one point I thought I might like to be a chef. Once I really thought about life inside a commercial kitchen, the long hours of standing, the heat and humidity, the shouting and pressure, I realized I didn't want to spend eight hours of every day like that. To illustrate my point, I recounted for him an episode of Dirty Jobs I had seen where Mike has to crawl under a house so he can learn how exterminators remove raccoons who've selfishly chosen to spend eternity in a nice family's crawlspace. I told him how Mike was cautioned against pulling the carcass by the leg because the putrefied remains may slide apart, leaving a pile of festering goo to be scooped out by hand. I described as colorfully as I could the rank odor of rotting flesh, and how a stench like that would fill the close air in a space so tight you have to crawl on your belly to get around. I even pointed out that once stuck on your belly with floor joists just inches above your head, you'd be fairly defenseless against any other critters who might see this as their very own territory to defend with tooth and claw. All to no avail. In fact, that set him off on a Dirty Jobs marathon, so I suppose I should be thankful he hasn't come up with something worse yet.
I have to admit, it is just the tiniest bit cute when he talks about his plans for "his business". A bit less cute when he asks where he can find some bugs to practice killing, and can he use my office to store his poisons? And less cute still when he runs around the house repeating Gribble's lines like a broken record and cracking himself up. If I hear one more verse of "Bee By Bicky Bo", I'm going to put my shoe through the TV. I absolutely draw the line at smoking, which fortunately has gone unemulated so far, but I guess the rest of it is out of my hands. I'm not sure if it was helping or hurting when I agreed to unpick the dozens of stitches that held my hand made pterodactyl head (Halloween, 1st grade) to the only ball cap he owned, but I did it. I'm sure I can at least fling unconditional support back at him when my aged bones need lifting out of the bathtub.
He left for school this morning wearing that ball cap and mirrored sunglasses, never mind that the bus comes before the crack of dawn. And I stood there with my coffee, wishing his teachers luck, and wondering what on earth my little weirdo will think of next.
*I don't have a Gribble pic yet, so Arlo's Dirty Jobs look from the early days with our house will have to do.*
