When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This prompt from the host of my blog made me laugh this morning so it seemed foolish not to use it as my source material. Jetpack, my host, gives a daily prompt which I ignore for the most part.
At age five I was heartily sick of being asked what I wanted to be when I was a grown up so had formulated an answer that made adults slink away.
“A lady, how about you”
My mum always told me off for being rude but I was truly sick of being asked that question.
A better one was, “What sort of house would you like when you are grown up?”
The answer was always the same and could even be an adult dream fulfilment.
“I would like a house where every room has chocolate digestive biscuits available”
Neither of these were the answer that made me chuckle this morning.
In the 60’s and 70’s my mum ran several Contraception and Sexual Health Clinics. The talk in my house was often of a pragmatic sexual nature. Imagine my parents ran a hardware store and talked about nuts and bolts. That level of conversation.
Not surprisingly my mums colleagues did not have a lot of children so when they held a monthly planning meeting at our house, there was usually only one other girl, Briony, brought over to play while our mothers plotted to limit the worlds population, starting in rural Essex.
One particular summers day myself and Briony were having the best time dressing up as Hippies and planning our careers at age 8. I had at that point moved on from the thoughts of being ‘a lady ‘ .
We both almost certainly knew what might irritate our mothers. Briony’s family were Quakers and if anything the conversations in her home were even more liberal and free thinking than in mine.
Eventually our mothers clip clopped into the garden to see what we were up to. I say, clip clopped, because all of my mothers friends wore Dr Scholl wooden sandals.
Our mothers and their friends were eager to hear what two such vibrant and enegetic little hippies were planning to be.
The answer, when it came, was not what anyone expected.
” We are going to travel the world as sex addicts”
The wooden sandals were silenced.
While researching for this blog I went to the website for Scholl. I may well get a pair for old time sake and to commiserate with myself with never reaching my ambitious goal in life.
theoldmortuary.design 