Drastic ambition

"Mom, how old do you have to be to qualify for a wish from the Make A Wish Foundation?" my son asked, emerging from the bathroom, guitar in hand. He has a habit of enclosing himself in the bathroom and playing his guitar, sometimes with the amp, sometimes not. I don't know why, maybe it's the acoustics. He'll spend hours in there practicing.

Immediately, I froze, wondering if somehow he had contracted a death-dealing disease but hadn't told me yet...but no, that couldn't be, because otherwise I would have been notified when he had his last physical. But then I thought, wait, maybe it's one of his friends, or a child he knows about.

"Mom?"

"Uh, I don't know," I said. Much moved by his apparent kind-heartedness and wanting to help, I opened my browser and Googled "Make a Wish Foundation." "It looks like between the ages of 2 1/2 and 18."

"Dang."

"What's wrong?" I asked, my concern rising.

"I only have a year to get leukemia, make a wish to jam on the guitar with Eric Clapton, have that fulfilled, and then somehow get better."

I groaned. Yet another example of an adolescent's sense of immortality. "No. You do not want to get leukemia, trust me on this."

He sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. With my luck I'll get it when I'm 40, when it's too late."

"With any luck, you won't get it at all! You'll have to think of a better way to someday jam with Eric Clapton."

"What if I got run over by a truck? Would that get me a wish?"

"No. Besides, you might get your hands crushed and then you couldn't jam with anyone."

"Huh, yeah. Don't want that." A thoughtful look came over his face. "Lyme disease?"

"NO!" I said.

He looked offended. "I'm just wondering!"

"No diseases!" I said firmly. "No accidents, and I don't care how much you want to play music with Eric Clapton. You'll just have to practice and practice until you get so ridiculously good at playing any kind of music that just one riff played by your incredibly nimble fingers will astonish everyone for miles around, to the point where they will follow you around like the Pied Piper, including--"

"Eric Clapton! And then he will want to jam with me because my guitar playing is so awesome as to defy description, and I'll say, okay, dude, if you can keep up, and meanwhile I'm thinking, 'eat my dust' because I will be SO better than Clapton."

"Exactly," I said, heartlessly sacrificing Eric Clapton to ignominy for the sake of my son's health and welfare.

"Cool!" he said, and returned to the bathroom.

"While you're at it, you might clean the toilet if you're going to spend some time in there," I said, hoping against hope that he might remember to do that.

"Sure," he said, but his voice was already sounding absent.

I wonder if there's a way to attach a toilet brush to an electric guitar, so that he could clean the toilet while he played? Probably the only way to get him to do it on a regular basis. (sigh)

--Karen H.