Every day Doozer and I walk together either to school, or back from school, or both.

Every day there are new questions. If I had a superpower what would it be. If I could have an intergalactic motorbike OR a teleportation device, which would it be? If I was going to be a magical creature as a pet, which? If I was going to write a musical, what would it be about? Would I rather be the goddess of fire? Or a wizard who could control water? Would I buy a set of portals that could transport me between 4 fixed points, or a teleportation machine that could send me anywhere, but only one way?

I rarely have the correct answer to these questions. I’m not sure there is a right answer, but if there is one, I apparently don’t have it as the questions keep coming back.

Yesterday, Doozer was heading toward me up the hill a couple of blocks from school with a friend. “If, right” said Doozer’s Friend, once they had acknowledged that I was now walking alongside them… “If, right, there was a bed of fire. Like, hot coals, or lava but like solid or… fire basically. But not like fiery flamey fire just really hot, like, ground, but not ground? Like, fire-ground, or…”

“Go on…” I cut in, trying to stop him going on (and on, and on)

“But, like, if you walk across it, you can have your dream job… would you do it?” 

I had a very quick think.

“No.”
“Oh. Ok but it’s, like, your DREAM JOB.”
“Gotcha. Still no.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a job. I’m not doing that for a job. Also that’s a really weird way to get a job. Why is my getting this job dependent on burning my feet? Also if this job I’m so keen on is so close that I could get to it by just running over fiery ground, then I can probably get it some other way, can’t I?”
“No, it’s… like… magic. You magically get your dream job.”
“Oh. OK. Well, still no.”

Doozer’s friend peeled off toward his house. Doozer kept up the questioning.

“But why NOT?”
“Well, I don’t know what my dream job is. Every job I’ve had has been a dream job in some way, so I’ve kind of already done it. Also, I’m old enough and tired enough that my priority isn’t tipping myself headfirst into whatever the next dream job is, it’s you. And our family, and our friend family and…”

“Yeah yeah…” He said, sensing that I was getting far too close to talking about feeeeeeeelings and things, which he’s great at tbh, but this was Not The Time “…but what IF, right, the dream job in question was time traveling detective?”

This was a different proposition. I thought very briefly again.

“Wait so… if I walk across this small amount of fire, I can time travel?”
“You can get a job as a time travelling detective, if that’s your dream job, yeah.”
“So by walking across the fire I’m changing the way that the laws of time and space and physics work because suddenly I can time travel, as my dream job just happens to necessitate that?”
“Yes.”
“Ok well, now I’m in.”
“So you WOULD walk across fire for your dream job!”
“No, I would walk across fire if it meant that I was changing the essential rules of physics and the universe because that seems worth having hot feet.”
“Same difference”, said my child/tiny in-house future lawyer, for whom every conversation has the potential to end in this kind of negotiation. Debate? Negotiation-debate. Negotdebation.

“Would you?” I asked.
“Oh YES, of course!” he replied, as if the very question was foolish. Which, now I think of it, it always was.
“Of course.” I said. “And, what IS your dream job?”
“Well” he said, thoughtfully. “I would have a holographic version of the earth, and I could zoom in on certain bits and change stuff and make awesome things happen.”

“Is your dream job… being God?…”
“Nooooooo!” he exclaimed, too fast and a little too loudly. “There’s no such thing as god.”
“Ok. But still…”
“Well, maybe A god. Like, a minor one.”
“…”
“A nice one, though!”

So! So much for my dream of being well-funded by my offspring in my dotage. I had no idea I was subconsciously relying on that whole future-lawyer thing. I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that being a minor god, ESPECIALLY a nice one, does not pay well.