When I grow up...

My childhood dreams.

When I was little, people would ask me what I wanted to  be when I grew up. I told them I wanted to be a gaucho.

"What's that?" they'd ask.

"They ride around on horses with lassos and herd cows," I'd explain cheerfully.

"Oh, you want to be a cowboy!" which made sense, because that was the kind of thing little boys wanted to be.

"No a gaucho!" I'd insist.

They would sigh, wishing they hadn't started a conversation with a little boy that was taking too long and preventing them from re-filling their gin & tonic. As an adult I've learned that conversations with clever children are over-rated.

"What you said sounds like a cowboy. Is a gaucho a word you made up for cowboy?"

"No, it's an Argentine cowboy. They ride the pampas!"

At this point the adult would nod and wander off. If they asked why I wanted to be an Argentine cowboy,  I was ready with answers. (I liked the outfits and wanted to live somewhere in a place where water went the opposite way down the drain.) But they never asked.

Anyway, that dream died when I realized I'd have to learn Spanish and that seemed pretty hard. So I decided to be an archeologist. Playing in dirt and discovering treasure seemed like a good career (this was before Raiders of the Lost Ark.) But then I learned archaeologists have to go to school for a long-time and often have to spend their time in bug-infested environments - and rarely find treasures and get rich.

Now, 35 years later, I'm still at a loss for what I want to do when I grown up.