Lottery

Just a warning at the beginning, I am anticipating that this posting/story will be kind of long so begin at your own risk.  I am attempting to do a little 'story telling' here.  Maybe a new 'creative' outlet for me.  If you comment, please be gentle.

If you were 9 years old, what would you plan for a career?   While talking to a Third Grade boy the other day our discussion went like this.

"What do you think you will be doing when you are as old as me?" I asked on afternoon as we were walking back from the ice cream shop. This question was preceded by a discussion of how old I was.  I never give up my age so I had led him to make his own calculations by reminding him that I was his father's teacher, asked him hold old his father was (37 year old) and let him do the math.  He came pretty close but was kindly about 10 years short of my real age.  I think he must have either been trying to be kind or just not planning on me attending college too long.  Anyway I took the 'low' number with gratitude.

"I am planning to be rich." he quickly responded with all sincerity.

I smiled at his confident response and countered with, " How do you plan to become rich?"

He was equally quick with this response, "I am planning on winning the lottery."

That optimistic attitude of youth was delightful to hear but being a realist I decided to continue my questioning with "What do you think the odds of that happening will be?"

With a thoughtful look on his face he did pause before answering, "Probably not so good."

Not wanting to throw a wet blanket on this conversation I countered with, "Do you have a backup plan?"

There was a brief pause before he decided how to answer that question.  "I will mine for gold" he said with a new found confidence and a bit of a smirk on his face.

"Well," I said.  "You might want still another plan.  Might I suggest that a way to get rich would be to marry a rich woman?"  Two can play at this game and it was a game by now.

I received a puzzling look and then that smirk returned.  He knew the game was on but was not interested in thinking about marrying just yet.  Being young he still liked his ideas better than mine.

You might think the story would end there but the next time I saw him he came up to me quickly and needed to give me the rest of the story.  He told me that his dad thought all three of the ideas for becoming rich were good.  However, His mom only liked the first two.  She didn't like the idea of him marrying a rich woman.

I could tell that a rather fun conversation had occurred   around that dinner table the night before and he enjoyed it a lot.  I wonder if I should show up for the end of the year picnic or try to avoid his mother?

OK,OK, it really sounded more funny in my mind but I have committed all this time with this post that I am going to push the publish button anyway.  It is a good thing that I am already retired and not counting on a new career in writing.

I hope you have a fun conversation with some young child this week.  It is especially fun to "match wits' with a clever child.