Laughing Matters: The One About My Future

By Ryan G. Van Cleave |  Illustrations by Darcy Kelly-Laviolette

This might come as a shock to you, but I’ve made an Important Decision about my life and my future. You might want to sit down for this. Perhaps, too, brew up a soothing cup of tea. And maybe surround yourself with highly squishable cushions, lest you faint from surprise.

Here it comes.

I do not want to be a four-star army general.

There, I said it. And I feel scads better now.

“But why don’t you want to be a four-star general?” you’re surely asking, which is a very reasonable thing to ask, since it’s every Wisconsin boy’s dream from the moment they first played POW POW with friends using sticks for machine guns. 

I’ll explain. 

The other night, I attended the Town Hall lecture series talk by General John F. Kelly at the Van Wezel. He was quite good, as evident by the after-event comments by my seatmates, such as “He’s quite good!” and “Wow, that was something.”

But despite all those heaps of praise they were lavishing on the good general, all I could think of was this: To get your uniform cleaned, do you have to take off ALL those medals? And worse, have you seen the prices these dry cleaners are now charging? Who can afford that kind of wallet hit?

So, thanks to those insurmountable obstacles, I’ll now have to add “US military leader” to the growing list of jobs I don’t want to do when I grow up, right there alongside “mobile sustenance facilitator,” “high environment hygienist,” and “moonshiner.” 

On the plus side, I have found a career path that does hold great appeal. 

Ryan Van Cleave…Martian.

I saw an ad online the other day inviting people to apply to be one the first group to make the one-way journey. Sure, it was from 2013, but hey, we’re not ready to go yet, so they’re probably still taking apps, right?

Just think about how great it’d be to join that crew of adventurers on a nine-month skip across the stars, all the way to the Red Planet. Once I got there, I’d have a decent chance of being the best Dungeons & Dragons player on the entire planet. My piri-piri chicken might indeed have no peer (within 140 million miles, at least). And if someone tries to tell me that Star Trek is better than Star Wars? Out the airlock they’ll go!

I’m totally just kidding. 

Everyone knows the 3D-printed bio habitats we’ll be living in don’t have airlocks.

I’ve told a few people about this me-on-Mars idea, and they keep saying it’s a desert, and thus there’s almost no water there, to which I point out, “There’s more water on Mars than in California!”

Most people assume that this 2030-something mission to Mars will mostly be made up of engineers, computer nerds, and billionaires avoiding the IRS. But I’ve been assured via a very official-looking form email that people “of all backgrounds and skills” will be considered. 

That’s me. I’m a people of a background. And I have skills—most notably my ability to nap while my family watches Hollywood blockbusters. My second-greatest skill? I currently have the #2, #4, and #7 top score on the standup Donkey Kong machine at the local AMF bowling alley. For realsies.

But I’m no fool—I know Mars is still a good ways off. So, until it’s time to blast off to my future among the stars, I’ll continue to do what I do best—tell my kids, “Go ask your mom.” Oh, and I’ll keep writing this column. 

How else will I cover my share of rocket fuel?

Have your own existential career crisis? Ever wish you were an astronaut, an astrologist, or an astroid? Do you have your own feelings re: dry cleaners that you need to vent (ideally that incorporate references to “The Jeffersons”)?

If so, you know what to do. Immediately run to the nearest technology thing you can find and fire off an email to me at MartianRyan@SarasotaScene.com. I’ll respond ASAP, unless I’m doing something else.