The Best Job Ever

It’s a fact of life that unless your last name is Hilton, Trump, or Kardashian, you have to work to earn a living, and not because your need for attention sucks in everything around it like a black hole.  It’s also a fact that everybody wants a job where they get paid buttloads of money to follow their passion (in this case being defined as something fun and awesome and not at all resembling actual work).  That would be The Best Job Ever.      

When you’re a kid, The Best Job Ever is something like police officer, princess or dinosaur cowboy.  If you’re really lucky, you might end up working at Dairy Queen or McDonald’s, because the food service industry is a magical place where you can have all the ice cream and hamburgers you want, and being able to make them yourself is like dying and going to Heaven.  Such is the beauty of childhood in all its blissful stupidity. 

However, as childhood gives way to adolescence, you learn that places like McDonald’s are not the gateway to Utopia, but more like a “scared straight” program for teens that don’t like to study.  You also come to the realization that your other childish fantasy jobs probably aren’t going to work out either.  No, it’s time to set your sights on more realistic goals where you actually have a chance of making lots of money and being happy at the same time.  That’s when The Best Job Ever becomes rock star, actor, rock star who becomes an actor, or actor who becomes a rock star, because even though teenagers are smarter than children, they’re still pretty stupid.

Next comes college, and what an eye-opener that is!  Over the next four years you are armed with all of the knowledge and life experiences you need to get The Best Job Ever!  A few years later, you realize that you and your fellow graduates ended up one of two ways: those who followed the buttloads of money work 90 hours a week and are riddled with ulcers, while those who followed the passion are living in their old room at their parents’ house and selling junk from the attic on eBay.  At this point it’s safe to say that The Best Job Ever is nothing more than a myth, like the Tooth Fairy or a reliable Internet source, right? 

Wrong!  The Best Job Ever does exist, and it belongs to only one person…Judge Judy.  Her job can be summed up in one simple sentence: Judge Judy gets paid millions to yell at idiots.  And, you know, justice and stuff.  But mostly the yelling at idiots part. 

We all know she’s earning buttloads of money, but is she happy?  All you have to do is watch her show.  It’s hard to tell at first, because thanks to multiple facelifts she now resembles the Grinch (no word on whether that was intentional or not), but if you look into her eyes as she chews out another dumbass who refuses to believe that he actually has to pay for things he wants, you see a certain sparkle that only comes from doing what you love. 

So that’s it.  That’s The Best Job Ever.  And since the position has been filled, the rest of us have to go back to jobs section of Craigslist and keep our fingers crossed.