What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up?

Out with the old...

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" Ignoring and not hearing the question, I sat instead in wonder at the new bendable grey vinyl seat I was sitting on, wondering if it will melt if I leave one of my 10p ciggies on it and glancing out of the window at the old school chairs that had been here since the olden days being chucked on the back of a lorry. My ears are disconnected from my thirteen year old brain as not to tax it during this rare multi tasking event. There is a hairy faced man trying to get my attention with a slap to the side of my Linco beer washed long haired empty head...

In with the new...

I'm trying not to make eye contact with the boring hairy faced man posing the question to me. Instead I'm fiddling about in my blazer pocket trying to dig out a rogue sherbet pip that was lodged in the corner.  I'm wondering how to get it to my mouth without this idiot with a shelf of an eyebrow from noticing.  That eyebrow, it went from crows foot to crows foot, a continuous track of hair. Dam my thirteen year old mind if only I could focus for more than three sec... Ooo! Look! A fly...



"Who do you want to be like Boy?"

"Gary Glitter sir" I replied.

I don't know why I said Gary Glitter, because that was a new rhyming slang for a shitter - that's toilet in middle English if you're not up to speed with East Anglian pre-Roman dialects. I meant to say Lou Reed, which is still slightly toilet like I suppose.


"Gary who?" he says with his face scrunched up and all of his facial hair meeting in the middle of his face.

"Glitter sir," with a heavy sigh wishing I'd said Lou Reed.

I can't remember beyond that. Asking a hormonal and oft distracted 13 year old boy with a semi permanent hard-on what he wants to do and who he wants to be like when he grows up is like asking a woman to quickly choose wallpaper, or a handbag or tampon size for the first time. You get my drift.

36 is a good age

I think 36 is a good age to ask what you REALLY want to do when you grow up, you won't be at work fiddling in a pocket for sweets or gazing at a skip in the car park waiting for something to be thrown in it, your more likely be thinking if you go in early tomorrow you can dump that futon your dog shit on into it. Your hard on is more likely to be under control and you will have mastered making good eye contact, apart from the odd glance at a weird mono eyebrow, mole and other strange facial edifice that you can use as conversational currency down the pub.




Thirty six was the age I left London for Hastings on the south coast. I had a business, and after a couple of years, drove it into the HM Customs official receivers wall. Yes, thirty six is a good age. You've probably been in a crap job for a while now, and maybe like me, have been hiding from the tax man and vat people. Divorced and permanently bitter. Your scowl has the makings of scar like wrinkles in your face and you have decided, that maybe its time to do what YOU want in life. Which for me meant becoming a Taxi driver for a few months while I decided this next phase in my life, just to tide me over you understand. I'm still driving a Cab twelve years later.



I'm glad my careers "advisor"  didn't help me in my quest for glitter and fame, even though silver lamé is relatively cheap these days. Well this idiot didn't help anyone, which is why I locked the security dogs from the next door building site in the classroom with him. And as for what girls wanted to do when they grow up? Fuck knows! I never asked one to be in my gang did I? 

 What do I want to be and do when I grow up? Dunno yet, watch this space... Arse! I said THAT twelve years ago didn't I? Bollox...