Working Stiff: The Many Jobs of My Youthdom

It's the time of year when kids everywhere are looking for summer jobs to pay the bills or to learn the ropes as an intern. I never interned anywhere when I was in college. I did, however, work my way through a long list of diddling part-time jobs.

I started working the year after high school, when I took a year off to learn about the work ethic (not my idea). I worked a number of part-time jobs, and by the time I graduated from college, I'd racked up one hell of a punch-drunk resume:

• I worked in a paint store, waiting on customers, mixing paint and drinking fuzzy navels with the store manager, who I was also dating. He was drunk with power so I quit.
• I sold weight loss programs to really unhappy people. I developed an intense eating disorder and an even more intense dislike of all weight loss programs.
• I schlepped frozen yogurt for a year. This might have been the best job ever. I had the keys to the store, and my friends and I would stop by at 3 in the morning to gorge on yogurt sundaes. When I was hungover a guy I worked with punched me in and worked for me until I felt like coming in. Loved. That. Job.
• I worked at a motorcycle parts shop. This one was really fun. The owners were friends and the mechanic was a great guy. We partied. A lot. Before, after and during work. The ratio of men to women customers was about 500 to 1. I'd leave work and go to a hardcore biker bar around the corner where I knew everyone and would dance all night long to local death metal bands.
• I worked at three or four video rental stores. One store in particular had a party atmosphere and I became good friends with everyone I worked with and all of the neighboring store owners, too. One night we were out drinking and the guy who owned the tropical fish store next door sank his truck in the Miami River. I wrote a story about that night.
• I worked in a department store, selling lingerie to elderly women. I worked with older women who all hated me because I breezed in and out between classes. I tried to explain that was the deal when I was hired, but they still hated me. I didn't work there long.
• I worked as a nanny. The couple had a significant age difference and two young children. Every day the stay at home hubby (who was only five years older than me), shut himself in his office all morning watching TV, had a three hour lunch with friends and then came home and slept until his wife got home from work, when he'd start bitching about what a hard day he had. The kids loved me and I loved them.

If only the frozen yogurt store had a retirement plan... I'd probably still be working there today.

Find Northern Kentucky part-time jobs at SnagAJob.com and cool summer jobs at coolworks.com.