Kids at Work
By: Ohad Rodeh
Tags: Teens, Short Story, Humor, Education

Part of your job as a parent is to instill in your children respect for their belongings and expensive electronic equipment. However, this is easier said than done. What can you do if your kid stepped on their phone during a basketball game? Being a modern 21st-century parent, you try to turn it into a learning experience. It seems straightforward, right?

Sometimes, the master learns from the apprentice.

“You are going to earn 15 dollars per hour for your work in the yard,” Susan told Jack. “You need to pay me back 1000 dollars for the smashed iPhone, so we can buy you a new one.”

“But that’s minimum wage! you told me to never settle for it, I should strive for better things, Mom,” Jack said.

“Well, that’s your lot now, try to remember this next time you even think about stepping on your phone. Accidentally or otherwise. You have several choices, you can work in the garden, fold laundry, or unload the dishwasher.”

Jack lowered his eyes and his shoulders sagged. “Any other options?”

“Nope.”

“Let me think about it.”

“You can start whenever you want,” Susan said.

…

Jack was unloading the dishes. He took a dish, examined it carefully, decided it was clean, then searched the kitchen for where to place it. He left no drawer unopened until he found the perfect fit, where the same-sized dishes were located. He took another dish, and the process started from the beginning. After an hour, the dishwasher was still half full.

Susan was drumming her foot and hunching her shoulders when Megan arrived. “Mom, I want to earn some money too, can I help with the dishwasher?”

“But honey, this is so that Jack will learn to take care of his expensive accessories,” Susan replied.

“But I can do a much better job,” Megan said.

Jack was holding up a dish against the kitchen light and turning it slowly, he brushed off a small mote of dust, and continued turning. Then, he started opening the top drawers. All of them.

With an exasperated sigh, Susan said, “All right Megan, go ahead.”

Megan took three dishes in one hand and placed them directly in the correct drawer. Jack was still in his fourth dish when the work was done.

“Hey mom, can I get a raise?” Jack asked.

“What? But you hardly did any work, Megan did most of it.”

“I spent an hour slaving over the kitchen; this is hard labor. Besides, Megan came in later and took a bathroom break while I was still working. I had to waste valuable work time being her bathroom buddy.”

“I never asked for a bathroom buddy, I am not a second grader anymore,” Megan piped.

“But what if you fell in? Who would save you?”

…

The washing machine and dryer completed their diligent work and deposited a load of clean laundry. Susan moved it to a basket and called: “Jack, please come help me fold the laundry.”

“Would it count towards my debt?”

“Sure”

“Ok, I’m coming,” Jack said.

Jack took a shirt, put it on the bed, and straightened it out thoroughly. He measured the vertical halfway point and folded it in half. Then, he folded it in half on the horizontal axis and went to put it in place.

Susan was putting away jeans, shirts, footers, and socks. Ten minutes had gone by, and Jack wasn’t back yet. She went to see what he was up to and found him closely examining each shelf in Megan’s closet. It looked like a forensic examination.

“Does the shirt fit on this shelf? Maybe the one below it?” Jack was thinking. “Hmm, I think I missed it, let’s start from the beginning.”

“Give me that,” Susan said, and placed the shirt on the correct shelf without thinking about it.

Back at the laundry basket, Jack took the last remaining shirt, folded it, decided that it belonged in Megan’s room, and went there.

Susan was folding the last pair of pants when she noticed Jack still wasn’t back. She found him looking through Megan’s closets. Again.

“I figured it out finally, the left shelf is for the light shirts, and the right shelf is for the darker shirts. I have a blue one, where does it go?” Jack asked.

“That’s not it,” Susan said.

Jack moved over to the first closet, “Oh, I’ll start over then.”

“Hand that over,” she said, placed it in the closet, and sighed. “It isn’t color sorted, you can put it in any of the shirt shelves. We’re done, the laundry is complete.”

“Great, that was an hour of hard labor,” Jack announced, “I’m pretty sure I deserve a raise.”

“Tell you what, there is one last job to do, and then you’re free,” Susan said.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“Trimming the hedgerow in the garden. Do that, and you are done.”

“All right, I have free time tomorrow, I’ll do it then.”

…

Jack was in the yard working with the hedge shears. The hedgerow was about ten yards long and a yard wide. It was a bit untidy, having had time to grow unrestricted for the last two months. It was time to straighten it so it would look good.

Susan has been hearing the “snip snip” sound of the shears for an hour when she decided to go check on the work. She thought that a lot of work must have already been done, and perhaps Jack would want some nice lemonade to drink. She found that hardly half a foot has been cleared and that Jack was cutting one leaf at a time. “It is to get an exact line, I don’t want to overdo it, then we would have to wait three months for the hedge to grow back,” Jack explained.

“Give me that,” Susan said, and proceeded to clean another foot in five minutes. “See, you use the shears to cut a section at a time, it is much faster this way.”

“I see, that was good work by the way,” Jack said, and went back to work.

After another hour Susan went back to the garden and found that the work has progressed very little. A small dragon lizard has appeared, warming itself in the sun. Jack was afraid of it, so he sat down until it went away. The lizard didn’t show any signs of moving, being a reptile that just really enjoyed basking in the sun.

Susan let out an exasperated breath and made a hard decision. It went against all her educational instincts; the lizard was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “Jack, this is good work, you are done paying your debt.”

“That’s great because I was just thinking about declaring bankruptcy,” Jack said and went back inside.

THE END