The secret life of Matthew Mitty

I am having kind of a Walter Mitty week.

Sort of. I just re-read the story to make sure I was correct in my comparison. And well, I am not hen-pecked nor a little misogynistic (although that might be Thurber not Mitty).

I am also not thinking of exciting and adventurous jobs necessarily, just new ones.

I decided I wanted to be an architect after meeting our home designer
Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I wanted to gain fame and acclaim as a world-renowned para-equestrian dressage rider.

I went to the aquarium Thursday with Mom, my little sister and her kids, and the trip brought rapid-fire job dreams.

At 11:31 a.m., I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. The dolphin show started at 11:30. Sure, they said you had to know how to swim, but it just looked so fun and cool that learning to swim might be worth it. And the dolphins totally reminded me of Claren. When the treats came out, they often seemed to just run through all the tricks in their repertoire to get the fish.

The best part was when the trainer dived in and was interacting with the dolphin and at the end the dolphin held her feet or something and swam ... fast. The trainer looked like the front end of a motor boat. And the end was cool, too. All the trainers were getting their dolphins to do random stuff. One trainer was doing the twist, and the dolphin started twisting.

But then we started looking at fish.

I have loved fish since I was a kid and my brother had guppies. I worked at a pet store growing up (well, I did after Mom walked into the pet store, which had a Help Wanted sign in the window but had just turned me down, and asked the owner why don't you hire my son?). I had at my peak about 100 gallons of aquarium water flowing in Mom and Dad's. That was cool. And I realized today that I could stare at fish all day. I could totally be an ichthyologist.

I like my job. I am not sure what all these second thoughts are about. And I don't know what to do about them. I mean Walter Mitty ends with him dreaming of facing a firing squad with no blindfold. I don't want to keep my job but wind up dreaming myself dead.