Do you think it's a universal human thing to watch the play of children and try to make predictions about their grownup futures?


A baby can't seem to resist putting her hands in people's mouths: maybe someday she'll be an orthodontist. A toddler loves pushing shopping carts: maybe someday he'll be a homeless man (or a dude in a band living in Halifax going to gigs with his gear). A kid adores Lego: maybe someday she'll be an architect. A child is obsessed with play money: maybe he'll be a stock broker and we'll get to blame him for the next Great Recession.

Adults just seem drawn to speculating in this way. I'm no exception.

My kid can become utterly absorbed with stuffing people (and chickens) into a bus for a solid 15 minutes. Very methodically: always through the front door, never through the top or exit door. Until the bus achieves an apparently acceptable capacity. At which point she abandons the game and moves on to the next project. Leaving all those plastic people stranded in some sort of horrible public transportation purgatory. Never moving any closer to whichever highly compelling destinations motivated them to submit themselves to such inhumane conveyance conditions in the first place.

I'm not one for praying, but I do find myself hoping fervently that she doesn't end up working for OC Transpo (or Air Canada). I don't know that public transit needs more of her kind of genius.