Scattered Rainshowers

I envy people who know all along what they want to be. People like Randy, who’s always wanted to be a cashier. He gets this almost beatific glow when he mimics tapping on the keys of a cash register. I’m happy too for friends who finally find their calling, never mind if they got sidetracked first by some boring and useless career like lawyering. People like Rhoel who is now a full-fledged stage actor, or Loudette who is now an events organizer for our former law firm.

Me, I haven’t made up my mind until now. I just know when I see someone doing something and I grab myself and say, I want that job. For example, a halo-halo mixer. There’s something so happy about mixing all these sweet ingredients of different colors and coming up with a shamelessly sinful no-pretense-of-being-healthy dessert. It’s the same reason why I go to buffet places like Cabalen and Albergus even if I’m not really into all these Pinoy fiesta dishes – just so I could get my hands into the halo-halo bar. It’s perverse, I know.

When I have a purchase gift-wrapped, then I know I also want to be a gift-wrapper. To have that ability to create a thing of beauty and make someone happy - how can you not want this job? (It baffles me tho why most professional gift-wrappers (in fact 100% in Rustan’s) are male, when I don’t know any male from my family or circle of friends who has ever wrapped a gift. I mean, it’s a girl thing. One of life’s mysteries, I guess.)

Last time we were at the duty-free shop, I saw this sales lady singing out song after song in the Magic Sing stall. How fun is that? I don’t think it’s possible to sing without having fun. And I don’t mean just the usual videoke staples like Build Me Up Buttercup or Dancing Queen or whatever. You can be doing an overly dramatic, angst-filled Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey lung-buster, and singing is such a joy anyway. Never mind if it means not having the talent to hit all the high notes in as public a place as a mall – this is all totally irrelevant.

I can also be like that girl Sarah from the Korean drama blog. With the utter volume of material in her site – from the comprehensive recaps and reviews to the downloadable soundtracks and latest pix of the hottest stars and indeed everything you need to know about Korean dramas or everything Korea in general – there’s no justice in this world if on top of this blog she also works full-time as something else. Like a hands-on mom or an employee in some competitive office or something. No justice whatsoever.

I was reading this chick lit starring a book publisher. And I thought – hmmm, book publisher … why didn’t I think of that? To get paid to spend your days reading and reading and being the first to discover all the nicest stories and working with writers too, not to mention being able to bring your work home as bedtime reading or while you’re vacationing on a beach – it’s too good I can’t even bear to consider it.

Needless to mention, I can also be a personal shopper, like I think what Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic series did when she moved from the UK to the US. It makes me wonder if this isn’t just fiction and whether real, live people can actually not only get paid but also derive their source of livelihood from doing something as silly and easy-peasy and fantabulous like blogging and reading and shopping. It’s surreal.

For entirely opposite reasons, I think I can also be a meteorologist. Not that I’m interested in the weather or anything. Far from it. I just think they have it so easy. They can announce that there’ll be scattered rain showers and if it rains in some obscure part of Jolo or something they’d already have done a good job, and no one can accuse them of being a mere know-it-all. I mean, it’s the whole essence of scattered. And they’re only ever in the spotlight when there’s a huge storm or major weather event – but otherwise I imagine they just spend their days Googling people up or whatever, and they don’t have their bosses breathing down their necks to make them meet a deadline or other savage work stuff. It’s the ideal job for slackers.

I wish I can claim to have always wanted to have as my main occupation something noble, like how tragic Holden Caulfield wanted to catch kids before they fall off a cliff. But actually there are only two things I’ve consistently wanted to be since I was a little girl: a ballerina and a kindergarten teacher. I ended up being this boring and pretentious accountant instead of doing classic and graceful plies and pirouettes. But at least with Clara I became a kindergarten teacher-wet nurse-poopoo wiper-terror mother all rolled into one.

One out of two can’t be all that bad