Oh, Friday. I was at my department head's house, which magically uncluttered itself since my last visit, nibbling on my host's over-delicious chicken and listening to the parents of prospective Butler history students try to out-pretentious each other. Somehow I managed to sit myself next to a winner.
"Twenty-eight is a good year. By then you've got your money, your job, and your house."
Thinking of the long stretch of graduate school before me, I laughed and shook my head. "I won't!"
At this, the speaker, a non-descript -- and as the evidence will show, suitably so -- prospy mother in her late forties, centered in on me wide-eyed. "Well! By 28, you should," she said, dropping the last word with the force of 10,000 disappointments.
I've decided I don't much care for shoulds.
My prayers go out to the woman's son. May he meet all the expectations of a middle-class, khaki, professional life. (Am I a bad person for hoping that Junior comes home his first winter break with a strong, loudly professed desire to become "a Performer," capital P?)
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1 comment:
Oh, but Bess, let us not forsake the humor of misinterpreted perspectives on the Butler ratio.
Maybe I'll tackle that one...craftily!
I can't decide if I'm counting my blessings for not encountering that duo yesterday, or for feeling regretful that we have no additional exchanges to add to the repertoire.
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