When you’re 16 years old your job opportunities are limited when you live in an unpopulated area.

I could either spend my summer time flipping burgers at the local fast food joint or I could take a job laboring at your camp across town.

I have these delusional ideas that it would be fun to spend the summer time outside in the woods laboring with teenagers, boy was I wrong. I guess all of the currency I received went to pay for the calamine lotion that I had to apply because of all the bug bites or sunscreen that I needed to survive the morning’s out on the lake. I was pretty much weary at the end of every morning yet I was unable to sleep here because the small sheds they had been sleeping in did not have any form of air conditioning. They called them lodges but they were simply a wooden box with cots & a small box for our belongings, then even the showers & bathrooms were open to the outdoors & often filled with bugs, and hanging out with the teenagers was kind of cool but even that could be stressful at times because many of them did not get along. It was our job to make them thrilled & help them to work together but sometimes it just seemed impossible. The best part of the job was the two days when I was able to go home, take a real shower, do my laundry, & sleep in my own bed where I had air conditioning. Those two days would often revive me to be able to make it through my next five morning shift. All-in-all I know it was character-building as they say even though I don’t necessarily request that job to teenagers.

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