excessive planning may be an excuse for inaction
Dave has goals he can only reach in his head. Forty-eight and a baby on the way, a wife two decades his junior, and a tatty apartment. Dave will always rent. He was raised that way and raising his own in a home somebody else owns feels near nostalgic.
Dave is a line cook, a burger flipper—or was, coming-up two years unemployed. It was a bad back and a job beneath his dignity, anyway. To Herb of Herberts Burgers, it was insubordination. To the chef at the lodge before that, it was incompetence.
Dave was going to be a Private Investigator. Then a carpenter. Then a security officer. Then a forest ranger. His dream was to perch in a fire-watch tower and scope out the land once or twice a day. He would otherwise occupy his twitching thumbs with games. Expecting, of course, a solid Net connection above the canopy. Watching the birds and bears, 5 by 5. Ganja be good.
Dave has no high school diploma. His wife has a doctorate in education. Opposites attract. Whether they remain together, the baby will decide. One day maternity leave will run out and take the car keys and their prospects with her.
So Dave is working on his math and English for a mail-order certificate. After that, a community college has offered to take his tuition for a couple years. Dave will be 50 and a novice by-law officer. There are jobs. Pandemic restrictions ensure a need. A need filled by retired cops or 22-year-olds with shiny-new degrees in enforcement.
Dave knows this. At some level he knows, as he knew with carpentry and the others. He knows that at half-century he will start over again, if Erin will still have him. And if so, five more years until retirement for Dave, the diver. The playground soccer player who falls down or turns up injured. Because falling down is part of the game and an excuse for not reaching the goal. But it’s good-enough for the goal in Dave’s head.
