Childhood Dreams

"That's a lot of ice cream," one of my coworkers informs me as I come back to the dinner table.

"Yeah, it's fun."

I get a blank look.

"You know, to make a giant cone of ice cream. That was my ambition as a kid. People asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I use to say I wanted to run the ice cream machine at McDonalds and make giant cones for all the kids."

"What?"

I shrugged, "I was like five."

"What did your parents think?"

"They wanted me to pursue something a little more ambitious." I paused to take a bite of the cone, "Some people are really bent out of shape about never achieving their childhood dreams but really I'm not. I was a pretty dumb kid."

There was an awkward silence and I could feel my baffled coworker's eyes on me.

"When I was little," Petar offered, "I wanted to be the garbage man."

"What is with you people? That isn't normal."

"Well, you get to ride around hanging off the back of a garbage truck... and I thought that was pretty cool."

"You didn't play like... astronaut or something?"

"No," Mace added, "although I did run around my house screaming 'reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!' as loudly as I could."

"Why?"

"Well, when I was little I wanted to grow up to be a firetruck."