Great expectations

When I was teaching, and people found out that I was a teacher, the ensuing conversation generally involved one of two responses:

Response #1:
Other person: (in saccharine sweet voice) You're a teacher? Oh, that must be soooo rewarding! (clasps hands in rapturous wonder)

Response #2:
Other person: You're a teacher? (snorts) Must be nice to have the whole summer off! (proceeds to tell everyone within earshot that I am a lowlife scum living off honest taxpayers' money)

So I was rather relieved when I left teaching to become an editor. I thought this would give me some measure of stature when I told people what I did for a living. Instead, what I generally got was this:

Other person: So what do you do?
Me: I'm an editor.
Other person: (stares blankly, possibly believing that editor means "some sort of rodent")

Now that I also do some writing, I find that the response has shifted again. When people hear that you are a writer, they do not automatically think of, say, writing for a newsletter on waste treatment, or writing for the Wilberforce, Ohio, Journal-Star-Free Press. They think New York publishing houses. They think multimillion dollar contracts. They want to know whether you have written any bestsellers. They want to know who your agent is. They want to know whether you can help them get published.

Some are quite adamant that you must be an author someone has heard of, even if they haven't. That you are holding out on them, being modest about your accomplishments. No, no, you say, really, I just write a blog. And an occasional note to my husband to please make sure the back door is locked before he comes to bed.

I run into these people in the oddest places. At the bank one day, I patiently waited while the teller conducted my transaction. She looked at her computer and said, "You're an editor and a writer!"

I stared at her, somewhat frightened. What other information about me was on her little computer screen? That I like chocolate and watching Monk? That I have always wanted to go to Australia? That I really wish the bank would offer a drive-through option so that I could do my banking in my pajamas?

"What's your latest book?" she went on.

I stammered, "Uh, nothing you would recognize. I just, uh, do, you know, educational stuff."

"Oh, you must be working on something exciting. Come on, tell me what's coming out next."

No matter how much I tried to explain that I'm not that kind of writer, she refused to believe it. She was sure that I was holding out on her. The more I declined to reveal any secrets I might be holding about the next bestseller, the more she tried to pry them out of me.

She finally flung my money and receipt at me, clearly disgusted that either 1) I wouldn't confide in her or 2) I had no secrets to confide.

To save myself this grief, the next time someone asks what I do, I'm just going to say that I eat chocolate and watch Monk. Let them make of it what they will.