A Gentleman Is Always Appreciative Of The Arts

I was the lead of my second grade play about "What I want to be when I grow up." Now, most people will cite something like this as a launching pad for a thespian career or as a moment of focused childhood anxiety, but being an extraordinarily stupid child I don't remember it being either. In fact, I don't really remember much emotion from my childhood at all, beyond embarrassment.

Even as the lead in the play I only had two lines:

• "Ahhh, Mom, can't I play Nintendo just a little longer."
• "Now I realize that I want to be an astronaut."

The play started off with an argument between my mother, played by the delightful Gwen Zadgel, in which I refused to go to bed, but did. I then fell asleep on the nurses couch that they brought into the auditorium. There was no argument about how "If I was an adult I could go to bed whenever I wanted" or "If I had a job I could be anything"... nothing. My character immediately caved. There were other plot holes as well. Now, mind you, the entire second grade was lined up on the chorus bleachers behind this once two-man show. When I fell asleep each person in the second grade would walk up to the microphone and say "My name is [name]. I want to be a [profession] because [reason]. I only remember one particularly: "My name is James Awexander, I want to be a geowogist because I want to study wocks and minewals." I remember thinking, "Kid can't even talk."

This was one of those two-hour elementary school play marathon and I must have fancied myself as something of a method actor because I remember thinking I had to lay perfectly still, because, of course, sleeping people don't move. This was exacerbated by the fact that the waiting line of children to get on the microphone walked past me and every single kid poked me, and asked "Are you really sleeping?" Looking back on it, it probably wasn't the best role, pretending to be asleep in my pajamas for two hours on stage.

The play ended with "Nate, it's time to go to school." To which I responded "I want to be an astronaut!" and ran off stage.

This was pretty bad, but it was better than being a bull in our kindergarten play about Mexico.