Life is just like a day of fishing. An unsuspecting fish finds its way to a hook, where it either meets its untimely end, or lives to see another day. While out fishing with my father and cousin, I began to realize, we are just like fish swimming in a giant sea, we call Earth. Everyday, we find our way to a hook, and everyday we either pass on by or take a bite. Life is to short to live and forget. Every moment is meant to be cherished, therefore everything should be remembered and reflected upon. This epiphany surged memories of the past to reveal themselves, and I began to reflect on the time that play turned into work.

My friend John and I decided it would be well worth it to take on a summer job, one that would make us a decent pay. We stumbled upon an opening at Pine Lake as beach Attendants. Little did we know we had actually stumbled upon death, as we knew it. We would be living as slaves under the tyrannical control of the camp counselors.

Pine Lake was a quaint little area in the early morning, but come sunrise, it became the destructive kingdom under the Counselors control. We arrived at work promptly at seven, Monday through Friday, a while before the sun would peak its head over the lake. This was the only peaceful time of the day. It was just the two of us getting to work, without camp counselors to hassle us.

The daily routine of sanitation and maintenance was to start at the camp area, then clean the bathroom, followed by the playground, and finally a full sweep of the beach. The job requirements were simple, all we had to do was pick up all foreign objects around the lake, this included all “foreign objects” left by the geese. The bathrooms were another story all together. It dawned upon us that something was happening in the world, people were beginning to forget you have to be near the toilet before you can go to the bathroom. No one would be able to even begin to imagine what we cleaned up from the bathroom floors.

As the counselors began to arrive, John and I would think to ourselves, “I would much rather gauge my eyes out with a dull, rusty knife then put up with these counselors for another day.” Nonetheless, we came to work day in and day out. The evil counselors would demand things from us that we would never be able to do or get, so we would tell them we could not do that for them and they intern would call our boss and say we were “talking back,” and “giving them attitude,” which we simply were not. The only thing we had to look forward to was lunch time.

Each day we were allotted half an hour for lunch. Even though we brought a small snack each day we were not getting paid during that half hour, so why wouldn't we simply take a break? During this break, we would make each other laugh so hard, the counselors would hear us on the other side of the lake. Pictured is one of John's funnier jokes while on lunch break. You would think we would have some peace and quiet while we were on break, but no, the counselors would not have it. Every time we felt relaxed, the lead counselor who we called “Crazy Lady,” would either come by requesting that we get to work, or call are boss and tell her we were not working and just messing around, when we were clearly on break. This daily interruption began to bother us less and less until Crazy Lady seemed to never come at all.

What made us feel even better was right after lunch when the counselors left. A sigh of relief would be heard, and we would be able to continue our work with ease and without stress, for soon we would be able to leave. When all was said and done, we would lock up our beach work shed and punch out. The day would be done and over.