Now Hiring...

Michael's been working on his resume, which has got me thinking about Oliver's future. About once a month, when we discover Oliver doing something new, someone in the household utters the sentence: "I wonder if he'll be a (fill-in-the-blank) when he grows up."





Which really, is kinda stupid.



Case in point. When Oliver first saw a drum, he took one stick in his right hand, one stick in his left hand, and tap-tap-tapped the drum in fairly decent rhythm. "I'll bet he'll be a drummer," I said. "I mean, he knew exactly what to do with those drumsticks, without anyone showing him how to do it first. The kid's incredible!"



But you know what? Kids know how to hit stuff. Not just our kid.





Or how about the first time he dismantled a toy and put it back together? "This kid," we all said, "is totally going to be an engineer."



Yeah. He and every other child 9 months and older.


If this pattern actually applied, Oliver would be lined up for an interesting life of being an egg-cracker, a DJ, a factory worker, a driver, a drummer, a cell phone sales rep, and a switch operator. Right.



But something I saw today showed promise for a career that would round out that resume a little. He had parked his little walk-behind car, bent down over its colorful hood, lifted up a plastic flap, and pulled out a plastic ball (which belonged to another toy). He held it up for inspection, then bent over the hood again to replace it.









"I think this kid could have fixed my alternator," I announced.

That would save us a lot of money. So it is decided: the pattern of normal childhood development as predictor of career does in fact apply, and Oliver will be a mechanic. Now if we can just keep our vehicles in pristine condition for another 17-25 years or so, we'll be golden.