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First Times

The summer of 2002. It was considered to be one of the biggest movie blockbuster summers ever, (thanks to movies like spider-man and star wars.)

It was also my sixteenth summer, the summer I could get a job. Many people can relate with me on this.

The ten bucks a week allowance doesn't seem to cut it anymore. Besides gas, girls need to buy their stuff, (jewelry, clothes, different colored clothes, even more clothes, etc,) and guys need their stuff, (video games, movies, cds, other things that are not particularly important in life, etc.).

Anyway, it was time for me to find a job. But being that video games rule my life, I didn't realize that waiting until the last day of school to go job hunting was very stupid.

For one thing, I live in a fairly small town. This means most of jobs in town are working at a gas station or a grocery store. Sure there were those fast food jobs like Macdonald's in the next town but A).

It was at least fifteen miles away and I didn't want to waste gas and B). I didn't want to become the guy that annoyed me the most. That's right, the "would you like that super sized, sir" guy.

Luckily for me, our "don't blink or you might miss it" town felt it needed four gas stations. Even more convenient for me was the fact that one of these gas stations were a mere 80 feet from my house.

Pretty soon, I became part of the Park Mart family. I soon found out I was the dog of the family though.

Yep, I was neither cashier nor stock boy, I was "give me a purpose" teenager, the boy you could get to do anything because he was bored out of his mind.

It wasn't all that bad though. After packing pop into coolers an hour at the time, you start to realize that the cooler is actually pretty cold. (Who would have thought!)

Also, I got a discount on all the greasy gas station food I could buy, even though I paid for it dearly a couple hours later after eating.

Even though it got boring sometimes (I could get all my work done in an hour and a half during a four hour shift. It did give me a lot of time to catch up on the local news in the newspaper though. I would have missed several garage sales if not for that time )it did teach me a lot of responsibility.

It also gave me a sense that I was serving the people and actually doing a pretty good job at it. So even though it can be a pain sometimes, stick with your job as long as you can.

You'll learn a lot more that you thought you would. Plus, you get money, and money is always good.

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