On Tape guns

Remember how when you were young people would ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? and if you were a girl you said something like, "marine biologist" and if you were a boy you said, "Don Draper." Dreams don't always turn out like we want. Sometimes the dolphins get caught in nets, (Reminds me of the brand of tuna safe dolphin meat that I was trying to get started) and die whilst making cute little clicking noises. And you don't always end up as a handsome ad man who drinks all day and naps at work. I suppose the alternative would be sports star, but that's so far off the radar as to be ridiculous at this point.
Anyhow, I miss the days when those dreams still seemed like they might become a reality, Like, if I stayed out and shot baskets for one more hour maybe someday the pro scouts would come calling. Clearly they must have got their signals crossed because no one ever stopped by the driveway at my house to offer me a scholarship. It's sort of a long way of describing the difference between dreams and reality. Aside that is sort of related.

Guy: What do you look for in a girl first?
Answer: Low standards.

The dissolution of your dreams isn't necessarily painful. It has a tendency to be more mind numbing. And that's how you end up standing in the mail room cursing under your breath because someone has stolen the good tape gun. And now you're sitting there trying to complete your job with a recalcitrant tape gun that doesn't ever sheer the tape off correctly, but instead, sort of mangles it into an unusable ball, while you frantically try and cut it properly before someone else comes in and notices what a jackass you are because you can't even use the tape gun properly. And now you're sweating profusely, and tape is wound around your hands, and it occurs to you that perhaps all of your dreams have not come true. Now, you just dream of coming into the mailing room and finding a nice tape gun with a quality brand of tape wrapped around it properly.

Quiz: Is this a sad thing? or some sort of introduction into adult life that will end up being beneficial in the long run in terms of teaching you patience and the necessary rote nature of being a participating member of a productive society?

Question: Is thinking hard about things like how you spend your money and distinguishing between wants and needs a useful activity? or is it ultimately a paralyzing activity in which much is thought but nothing is changed?

Question: If you were independently wealthy what would you be doing for a living?

Answer: (Clerks) That's a bs question because nobody would ever want to pick up other people's garbage and crap for a living, but we need these people to make our society function. Paraphrase obviously.

So now I stand before you, holding a piece of worn tape in my hand, winding it slowly on a box bound across the country. And I have to ask myself what it means. I have to rationalize that what I'm doing makes a difference in the world. Perhaps the answer is that no one makes a difference in the grand scheme of things and that on the micro level everyone makes a difference. Thus, you just get to choose, which of those you are going acknowledge.

At some point I got off the subject of tape rolls, and I'm not entirely sure I intended to. I'm guessing most people have tape gun stories from their jobs/lives. The long and the short of it is that I'm going back to school to become a marine biologist to restore gender balance to the field. Flipper here I come!

I'm hoping that a major in marine biology doesn't include science classes though because I will fail out in a second and go back to battling tape gun.