At Least They’re Figuring This Out Before It’s Too Late

I used to teach tenth-grade English. One day, I assigned a twenty-minute writing prompt on the students’ dream life.

In my seventh period, I had a couple who had been dating for about three months. The boy was completely head-over-heels in love with his girlfriend, but he had some “unique” ideas.

After the twenty minutes were up, I asked for volunteers to share what they had written and the boy stood up to read his paper.

Boy: “My dream is to live off the grid in either Wyoming, Montana, or Alaska. I want to live in a cabin that I built with my own hands. I am going to have a farm and grow my own food, an orchard where I grow my own fruit, and cattle, chickens, and pigs that I’ll raise myself for meat. I’ll be living hours away from any real towns or cities and just have a completely free life where I can do whatever I want and be totally self-sufficient. My wife will help me build our cabin, she’ll bear our children right in our cabin, and we will homeschool them and teach them to live off of the land.”

Girl: “Um, I will definitely not be having our children in a cabin! I will be having my children in a hospital.”

Boy: “Honey, we’ll probably be three or four hours away from any hospital. Maybe more if we choose Alaska.”

Girl: “I am not giving birth four hours away from any sort of medical care!”

Boy: “You won’t have a choice. I won’t be able to get you to a hospital! You’ll be fine, I promise! I’ll know how to deliver a baby because I’ll have to help our cows have their calves.”

Girl: “Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work out.”

Surprisingly enough, they were no longer a couple the next day. He was much more heartbroken about it than she was.