Why I Will Never be a Secret Service Agent

Today was my first day back from school. It was nice for a change of scenery. That's about all I can say; not much more is noteworthy. School is school.
In government class, Mr. Murray had turned the Projector on. It was displaying the American Banner of Red, White, and Blue upon the white board. We don't have smart boards in my school. You know, the boards that act as huge touch-screen computers and require passwords and teaches the class about Algebraic algorythms, thus rendering the teacher completely useless. No, we don't have those. Only rich people in Seattle use those. We have white boards, and we write on them with these smelly no-brand Mexican markers that smell like old Papaya.
Anyway, everyone knows that if the projector is on in Mr. Murray's room, it means that either we're going to watch a movie, or he just decided to simulate this chapter's section of notes on the board.
It was a movie. A National Geographic Informative Film, as the title screen says; it was indeed informative. It was about the Secret Service.
When I was a kid of about 10 I used to think that I'd grow up to be an Air Force Pilot or a Secret Service Agent who lunges out into the path of bullets to save the President, because the president is important. I would be the adventurous guy that could tell his children's children about all of the cool James Bond-like adventures that he had. Tell them how I was one of the lucky ones, how I jumped onto a plasma grenade (this is in the future, so plasma grenades are common...and deadly!) and survived; how I was captured by the enemy and was tortured for weeks, but never gave up any infrmation, because I was just that cool. I would be the type that drinks coffee black because I'm too busy saving the president and being tough to think about sugar or cream.
Now, at seventeen, things are different. I aspire to maybe make it to twenty-five without getting married. I shall get a major in English and a Minor in Music. From there, I shall write books about heros who drink black coffee and save the world. Perhaps I shall get ill from some sort of disease, and live the rest of my life snivelling in front of a computer screen, writing and daydreaming about the guy I was supposed to be, but was too lazy and perhaps uninterested in modern government to get out of bed and enlist or something.
I'm quite content to let other guys with authorized rifles to protect me and my president while I type on a silly keyboard or twang on a silly guitar. Protecting people is what they want to do, and making words an music is what I want to do. This is nice. I like this.
Anyway, as the movie played, I kept having flashes of what life would be like if I was still into that kind of Secret Service thing. I would probably be playing sports now, I think. I wouldn't spend so many nights alone in my room trying to record a song, but rather research the best way to scout out potential sniper spots in the city. I would wear sunglasses and go to church in a black suit with a black tie, because black is what we wear. I would be unstopable.
Rather, when I'm thirty-five, I shall wear open polo's with big hawaiin flowers on them and kahki shorts, a big Nikon D-40 strapped around my neck, and I'll go visit the white house like the amazing tourist I am.
Oh to be an American.