OK, quick rider to completely undermine the point of my whining in the previous post.

The year is 1986. I'm in the second grade at Lone Tree Elementary at Beale Air Force Base in California. We had a guest speaker that day, who told us all about goals in life. Specifically realistic and unrealistic goals.

At the end, she went around the room and had us all say what we wanted to be when we grew up. So, this being mere a classroom on a military base, mere months after Top Gun came out, you can guess what pretty much every single boy in the class said. As she went around the room, one kid after another cheerfully replied "F-14 fighter pilot!" to which she would smile, nod and say "OK" before going on to the next kid. But when it got to me I stood up and excitedly said "Major league baseball player!"

Without even missing a beat she calmly said "That's an unrealistic goal." and went on to the next kid.

So there. That's the reason I never made it to the major leagues. Not the fact that the last time I played baseball was when I was 12 and even then my primary method of getting on base was sticking my head in the strike zone. (Though that may explain some other things.)

In any case, suitably chastised, the next time we did such an exercise I lamely replied "marine biologist" or something because that's what the girl ahead of me said. I had learned my lesson. Dreaming is only for fools.

(Also, at any given point in the baseball season there are 750 players on major league rosters. How many F-14 pilots are there? Seriously, do you know? Because I bet it's less than that. The evil wench.)

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