All Grown Up and Cartilaginous

When I was a child, adults would frequently ask me this annoying question.

"Hello little girl, what do YOU want to be when you grow UP?" (the caps lettering insinuates higher pitches). And then after that question the usual "A wuzza wuzza a boo! a boo!" generally followed along with the nose pinching and hair tousling.

Well, I had hopes of becoming a renowned jockey. ("Oh DO you? Oh you SO funny!") Yeah, I do want to be a horse jockey, what's so funny about that? My brother wanted to be a woodpecker so I felt my dream of being a jockey was something attainable. But, I always knew that was unrealistic since I was so large, but nonetheless I wanted to be a jockey. So I became a closet coffee consumer to stunt my growth. It didn't work; I'm still above average height.

Well, now I've grown up and today I became something I never thought I'd be when I grew up. A cartilage. To be more specific - an arytenoid cartilage.

Today in my anatomy class, my professor said "Allright folks, I need nine volunteers." My youngest child syndrome emerged and I thought "attention" so I shot my hand up enthusiastically, he pointed to me and I sashayed up to the front of the class confidently. A few others volunteered but the professor then had to campaign to get nine people to come up on stage. Weird.

My innovative professor had this idea to make a human larynx. My role was to be one of the arytenoid cartilages. I have to say, I was a bit jealous of the thyroid because, it's bigger. However, my right arm got to be a muscular process where my classmates attached to (my muscular classmates).

I will now give you a recapitulation of the learning process.

Me and the other arytenoid cartilage held on to the end of a scarf and the thyroid held onto both scarves to form the vocal chords. My muscle classmates played the role of the muscles that moves the cartilage (me) and then pushed and tugged me in various directions. The professor demonstrated to us what causes vocal folds to open and close. My acting skills were challenged but I managed to shine and only had a minor amount of stage fright.

Allright, you're thinking "cool story," but I'm going to move on with my life now.

Hold your horses. Here's the thing, we never know what we're going to be when we grow up. We only speculate.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd grow up to be an arytenoid cartilage.

Who knows, maybe you'll grow up to be potassium ion, a one-man band, or a dictator or well, you get the idea.