Delusions of Granduer

Take away the palm trees and mountains, but leave behind the garish strip malls and you will see Las Vegas is a lot like Des Moines or even (gasp!) Sioux Falls. In college I often pretended to be too good for Sioux Falls. After all, someone as talented as me has no place in South Dakota. I am somehow better than suburban monotony. Yet, I find myself a minivan’s length from the monotony cliff right here in Sin City.

I often daydream that my life as a suburban kindergarten/first grade teacher will somehow be interrupted when someone discovers my true talent. Often that hidden talent has something to do being a writer, stand-up comedian, or something equally unlikely/absurd. I will fondly look back on my “teaching days” as I milk it for material on my newfound journey that forces me to reside in a substandard apartment in Los Angeles or New York.

Watching Judd Apatow most often instigates these momentary absurd fantasies. Visions of performing stand-up comedy and co-starring in a movie with Jonah Hill occupy my brain. After all, I feel sharing a hairstyle with Seth Rogen makes me just as talented as he is. (I’ll just conveniently overlook the fact that Seth is rich, Jewish, and funny and I am none of those.)

Another hallucinogenic culprit tends to be written word. These fantasies happen less often, as there is nothing inspiring about my usual reading fodder: the riveting teacher’s manual that accompanies the Harcourt Trophies series. However, when I pick up David Sedaris I find myself thinking that my family is semi-functional enough to find their way into my creative essays. Even further, I know that with a little coaching I could find myself on NPR sounding rather pretentious and sharing my highbrow humor with the world. Whether or not this path would be more enriching than becoming Seth Rogen-esque is debatable. Either way, both non-realities seem much more appealing than my day-to-day reality as “Mr. Asplund.”

It’s not to say that teaching is a bad choice or a decision I regret making. With that said, I have never felt the near-religious calling to the profession that was described to me in my college preparation. I do not consider myself some sort of financial martyr who has taken a vow of strict middle-classerty in an effort to mold and shape the minds.

I do not adorn my teacher desk with the typical trinkets with inspirational sayings about my impact on the future, partially because I am not the “inspirational” type and partially because reminders of my large scale potential for impact scare the living crap out of me. To be truly honest, I am still unsure why I am a teacher. However, I seem to be reasonably successful at it and I find a certain level of contentment in coming to school each day.

Whether it is Sioux Falls, Des Moines, or Las Vegas I will still live the mundane life. I will comfort myself with the knowledge that I am none too shabby at playing the role of suburban teacher and maybe it is just where I am meant to be. Yet Seth Rogen and David Sedaris are still out there, tempting me to hotwire that minivan and head east/west to live out a ridiculous dream.