when i grow up

all i did was turn on the tv today. and i didn't even turn it on for any particular purpose. just i came home after having coffee with someone, and for some reason i flipped it on. and something really icky was on the channel it turned on to, so i flipped it just once, and it landed on toddlers and tiaras. which is a horrible show depicting a horrid group of people who force their tiny children into high-heeled hairsprayed pagentry. and i was about to flip on to the next bad show.

but sometimes things will catch your ear. and the pageant announcer, in a very serious pageant voice, was announcing this little girl in the 2 and 3 year old division. and he said "when xxxxx (i forget the name) grows up, she either wants to be an octopus or a photographer. no smile. no pause for laughter. not even a quizzical amused look. just that, while the camera panned to a mother shoving a tiny tot towards an x marked on the floor, and an "aunt" stood up in front of the child to demonstrate the semi-pornographic choreography the child was supposed to perform.

and first i laughed. and then i was sad. because i realized that the kind of parent that sprays a glow tan product all over the body of a toddler, or glues false eyelashes on a baby is just not the kind of parent who is going to let his or her child grow up to be an octopus, no matter how much she wants to be one.