Career Day

A local middle school asked me to present during career day.

To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first but then I reminded myself that I rock and decided to take them up on there offer. I was going to get a chance to talk about me for 30 minutes, who wouldn’t want to do that.

My audience was going to be 11 and 12 year olds and I was sure that they would be hanging on my every word.

I went this morning to the school and was very happy with the reception that we were offered. They took all the speakers for that day and had us in the library. They had recruited some members of the school band to play background Muzac for us and offered us quiches.

I’m not really sure what a quiche is but I thought it was pretty cool that we had them. It made me feel fancy. It made me feel like an Astor or something on that realm.

There was some jovial small talk between all the presenters and I took the chance to see which chump would come in second to my greatness.

They had the expected cosmetologists there, which to be honest, I just don’t know why they don’t call them hairdressers. They had some nurses and some in the health profession—nothing that would really overshadow my presentation.

They had some guy from FedEx there and I knew that my presentation had to be a hell of a lot more exciting than the guy that dealt with boxes all day.

There was a guy there that was a writer and I may have mentioned that I write a blog and if he should care to read it, I might be persuaded to give him some tips on spelling and grammar.

All in all, I was feeling pretty good. I can hang with these people and the kids will love me.

Then the U.S Marshal walked in with his full on swat gear. Shit. I got nothing compared to that.

He was clad head to toe in black terminator type gear. There was a visor for Christ’s sake. I had no visor. And he had to bring his gun and holster, cocky asswhip. Seriously, this is career day we are not storming the beaches at Normandy.

I can’t follow that. Please God don’t make me follow that. Let me follow the FedEx guy, that would be great.

They broke us up and we each went to an assigned classroom. The kids would rotate between classrooms and we would give our little 30 minute speeches and then take questions.

I was rolling by the second class that came in. We had four total and I was just getting to the point where they were eating out of my hand. Jump monkeys, jump while Hossman tells you of his greatness.

I told them of a case where there were a 120 cats locked in the house. I told them of the time I went into the meth lab to help the old lady and they ended up barricading the police out for 10 hours. I told them to help people sometimes you gotta get a little bit dirty damnit! It was good stuff.

Until the last class came in. I started with my usual banter about what I did and what they needed to become me. Stay in school, go to college, get a degree, don’t do drugs, drink your milk and love your mamma.

But this class wasn’t responding. In fact, they looked bored, what the hell. I told them that I had been on the news and had given interviews. They still looked bored. I told them that I was the biggest celebrity that they were likely to ever meet. Nothing.

Finally, a kid in the back let me know that they had just listened to the U.S. Marshals presentation.

He said that the Marshal chased bad guys and let them play with his handcuffs. Really? He let you play with the handcuffs. Ok, that’s pretty cool.

He said that the Marshal also let everyone look at his fancy bobophet visor and put it on. He let you put that on did he?

Finally, he said that the U.S. Marshal let everyone try on his bullet proof vest that he wore when he went all swat. They said it was heavy but very cool.

I looked down at my hand that held my sad little pamphlet. This couldn’t compete with a U.S. Marshal’s bulletproof vest.

So I turned the class over to my partner and left the classroom to find the U.S. Marshal. Maybe he would let me try on the vest and visor. Then we could play Xbox together and be Best Friends Forever.