Daily writing prompt

What profession do you admire most and why?

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There are a lot of professions I admire but not a single one that I admire most. At least not that I am aware of.

Doctors, specifically surgeons. I have some recent personal experience in how the right surgery at the right time can change a person’s life for the better in practically unimaginable ways. It’s borderline magic. That has given me a new admiration for that particular field of human endeavor.

Teachers. This will feel a little like sucking up as my sister, my sister in law, and a bunch of my friends are teachers, but when it comes to brutally difficult, high stress, thankless jobs, teaching has got to be near the top of the list. It’s also critical. I have infinite admiration for teachers.

Software architects. I can write code. I am a programmer. Building a large system from the ground up though? Designing a full system? That’s so far over my head I can’t even fathom it. It’s beyond impressive to me.

This sounds like a suck up, but I’m going to mention it specifically for the twist I’ll put on it. Musicians, artists, photographers. Anything in any creative or artistic field. Not because of the skills required to do the job, which are definitely admirable and in my case often enviable, but for the 99% of the profession that goes along with it. If I had the self-promotional skills, the marketing abilities, the political savvy, whatever you want to call it, to function within the music industry I absolutely would have. Playing an instrument? Making music? I can do that and on good days I can do it well. What I can’t do is everything that is required to sustain yourself within that industry. I can’t sell myself in the necessary ways in order to juggle the 300 different jobs per day that a professional musician (or artist, or photography) needs to, and that put an end to my music career before it even started.

Probably the profession I most admire though is medical researcher. Somewhere out there some scientist in a white lab coat is studying the human body, looking for a way to beat diabetes (or cancer, or MS, or whatever illness or condition you can imagine) and will someday come up with something that makes my step son’s life healthier and better, if not cure his condition outright. When that colossal breakthrough comes, that particular scientist is never going to have to pay for a drink in my town again.

Daily writing prompt

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

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I have never really considered this question before. Most of the shops I would like to open are part of a dead industry now and would be guaranteed to fail within days of launching. Book stores? Dead. Record stores? Dead. Used record stores might be able to hang on for a while but new release stuff? No way, dead and dead. Musical instruments stores? Dead. Hell, even Guitar Center, the biggest of the big chains is dying on the vine as we speak. Maybe I could do a vintage guitar shop, but I would never have the zillions of dollars that would be needed as up front capital to stock a whole shop with vintage guitars. That’s sort of how the used instrument economy has played out in recent years. Even shitty old guitars are worth a ton of money, just for being old.

So if I were going to open a shop of my own, what would it be? I guess I could try to go with a Stephen King’s Needful Things kinda place. You know, a curiosity/antique shop where all of the items are cursed and pre-destined for each customer so that they can suffer their own specific trauma? Something like that.

No, that wouldn’t be it. I’ll tell you what I would open. Hey customer, have you had Gastric Bypass surgery? Do you have Type 2 Diabetes and are you struggling to keep your numbers under control? Well come to my shop where we sell nothing but Sugar Free Candy.

Boom. Million, dare I say billion, dollar business plan. Sign me up, babie!

Daily writing prompt

What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

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Adam Sandler answered this question at some point in the past. It’s a three pronged answer: Phone, Wallet, Keys.

Since the start of the pandemic, when our household was sustained via multiple, nearly daily, Amazon package deliveries I added a pocket knife to my must-have-with-me-at-all-times list. I started with a cheap little thing I bought at a gift shop somewhere in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but at Christmas 2021 I bought nice Swiss Army Knives for me, my wife, and my step step kids. My Swiss Army Knife is in my jeans pocket right now as I type this. It’s always either on my person or close by.

There is another answer to this question that is infinitely more important than phone/wallet/keys/pocket knife. It’s not a tool. It’s not a gadget. It’s a symbol and I am never, ever without it.

My wedding ring.