When I Grow Up...

Megan & I took a break from the SXSW activities last night. I was tired. Instead of going to the movies, we rented a couple of movies. We watched August Rush last night... I was not into it. I don't know if I was in a weird mood or if I had just been exposed to a bunch of great movies at SXSW or if August Rush was just a so-so movie. Robin Williams looked uncomfortable in his role. The relationships felt forced. I did not like August Rush.

... geez, August Rush, I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I'm just saying you weren't for me. Let's go our separate ways and still agree to be friends.

But while we were at the video store, an awesome thing happened to me. Megan & I were standing in line to get our videos. There was a family of 5 in front of us: dad, mom, 2 sons & 1 daughter. The dad was paying\checking-out, the mom was trying to get the kids to stay together. The oldest son was standing about 10 yards away from me. He could not have been more than 7 years old. He was pulling on his distracted mother's shirt saying, "Mom! ...Mom! ... Mom!" Finally, the mildly annoyed mother turns to the son and says, "WHAT?!"

The little boy proudly proclaimed with a big smile on his face, "When I grow up, I want to be THAT GUY"... and pointed directly at me.

I thought, "HELL YEAH!!!"

It was the high point of my day. I started laughing. It made me feel so damn happy.

I composed myself immediately because the parents were not laughing. In fact, I heard the mother admonish the little boy by saying, "You don't know that man". The mother's voice had a clear tone of, "that man could be a drug dealer, an ax murderer, or even worse, governor of New York".

I wish I had known why the little boy wanted to be me when he grew up. Based on what the boy knew about me, I have come up with the following list of reasons why he might have wanted to be me:

• he REALLY wants to watch August Rush
• he secretly desires to have a receding hairline
• he wishes he were about 20 pounds over-weight and still have the self-confidence to look at a bag of Twizzlers and think, "you are coming home with me, little red devils!"
  
• he wants to be 33, in a video store and smiling for no reason
• he wants to have a smoking-hot wife who goes to the video store with him

If I had to guess, it would be the last reason.

But then again, he was only 7... so what does he know about smoking-hot wives? He won't get into that for another 5-7 years.

I don't know what he was thinking, but I like that kid. Thanks for making my day, kid.