“You need to go to sleep, sir,” I said laying down next to my 7-year old son.

“Appah, what did you do when you were eleven?”

“Eleven?  I guess I was in … sixth grade?  Don’t tell anyone, but I used to sell Jolly Ranchers in school.”

“Oh, the red and the grape ones?”

“All of them.  I made some money too, but then I got in trouble.  Don’t sell stuff at school.”

“What else did you do?”

“When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonald’s.”

“Were you up front?”

“No, mostly the girls did that.  The boys worked grill in back cooking the boogers – burgers.”

“Haha!  You said boogers.”

“They practically were.  It was hard work.  Greasy, hot, sweaty, standing there all day pressing burgers,” I omitted the grease burns, “The people were fun though.  Most of us were teenagers.”

Or underpriviledged misfits in one way or another.  The others included a psychotic ex-marine and a likely serial killer.

“What else did you do?”

“When I was in college, I worked in a science lab.  Growing bacteria in little dishes.  It was really boring.”

“What’s a bacteria?  I forgot.”

“They’re the tiniest little animals that live everywhere but you can only see them with a microscope.”

“Then what did you do?”

“One summer, I was a waiter in a fancy Greek restaurant for about two weeks.  Maybe less.”

“Why so short?”

“The manager was really mean to everyone.  Sometimes when people are mean to you, you have to be mean back.  When I quit, I took off my bowtie, and whipped it at his fat belly.  It bounced off.   The whole kitchen just stared.”

“…,” Sun Su was quiet for two long seconds.  Uh oh, what’s the moral to this one again?

Then he started to giggle.  Then laugh.  Then really laugh.  It got to the point where he was trying not to laugh because he was laughing so much.  Then he’d take a breath and think about it again and start all over.  It was so genuine and uncontrollable, that I did the same.

Fifteen minutes of that.   He’d never laughed so much before.   One time he laughed almost as much, but I can’t remember what it was anymore.

Eventually, we got a hold of ourselves and he said,

“Did you want to be a waiter?”

“No.  I just did that to make money.  I wanted to be a comic book artist.”

“Why’d you become a doctor?”

“Well, lots of reasons, I liked learning and science (and respect and revenge against all the fucks who would never again look down on us), but mostly, my mom really wanted me to.  We didn’t have much money (or respect) and it was kind of my job to take care of us all someday.”

“But you were just a kid.”

“… Well.”  (I’m glad it was dark.)

“Maybe you were a big kid.”

“But now, we have a nice house, and a nice car, and you don’t have to worry so much about money.  You and Ooseung can be whatever you want to be.  Something you like.”

“I want to be a writer and illustrator.”

“You do?  That is very cool.  I think you’ll be good at that.”

The next night, after I tucked him in, I heard giggling from his bedroom again.  All those jobs were worth it to hear that.