Zaque had a full-time job working as a camp assistant at the YMCA over the summer. He made good money, and as a result he was flush with cash for those few months. After tucking half of his income into a savings account (Mom and Dad are such killjoys, right?), he was free to spend the remainder on whatever he wanted. It turns out what he wanted was video games, video game add-ons, computer hardware for video games, and the occasional bag of Hot Cheetos or Takis.
As the summer came to an end and the camp wound down, we told Zaque he was welcome to get another job– perhaps at the YMCA– if he wanted to continue spending money at that rate. He chose not to, and the school year started. Not surprisingly, the financial well quickly ran dry. He was still going out to lunch with friends, and after a bit of questioning we learned that his friends had been supporting him. I told him it’s not cool to be a mooch, and he needed to either figure out how to pay his own way, or stop going out to lunch with friends.
Clearly there’s only one choice there, so he shopped around for another job and landed one at Get Air. It’s a trampoline park in town, and they needed some responsible teens with gymnastics or trampoline experience. Zaque had the experience, and apparently in the interview he managed to convey some semblance of responsibility, so they hired him.
He’s been there for a little over a month now, and he seems to enjoy it. Before his first day, he had to watch nearly forty training videos on YouTube, and answer some questions about them. They were the usual things about how to administer first aid, how to be a good example, and presumably how to set bones that break after crazy accidents on the trampolines. My favorite safety video, though, was the one about Foam Pit Extraction.
A Foam Pit Extraction is apparently what happens when a kid launches off a trampoline and lands in the foam pit, but can’t get back out for whatever reason (most likely broken bones). So now, every day after he comes home from work, I ask him if he did any Foam Pit Extractions. To date, he hasn’t.
Also, I think Foam Pit Extraction would be a great name for a band.