“I can’t believe you’re finished!” she squealed, staring at the shiny piles. I was used to hearing that from my teachers at school, but I assumed this declaration of surprise would translate into a fat tip.

“Well,” said Mrs. Cheapo, taking out a wad of cash, “let’s see, you were here for one hour and twenty minutes, so here’s eight dollars.”

“But I thought this was a twenty-dollar job,” I reminded her.

“Not with you, honey,” she said. “It didn’t take you that long.”

I should have hurled a few oyster forks at her, but instead I thanked her and rode my bike home. She was right about one thing. The polish did ruin the gloves.

Through my friend Marilyn, I found out that the local movie theater was looking for summer help. I was hired to work at the concession stand, where I was responsible for selling the type of food that should come with a free angiogram.

The popcorn came in four sizes, small, medium, large, and jumbo. During the entire summer, only three people ordered the small popcorn. They were European and had apparently come to watch the movie. Most patrons ordered the jumbo popcorn, a snack whose container could double as an infant bathtub. The instructions were always the same: “Please put butter in the bottom, middle, and top. No dry spots.” Not even when my relatives ended their fasts during the holy month of Ramadan had I seen people consume this much food.

The lobby of the movie theater was plastered with signs declaring OUR POPCORN IS MADE WITH REAL BUTTER. Judging by our brisk popcorn sales, I suggested to my manager that perhaps a similar advertising campaign might improve hot dog sales. “Our hot dogs are made with REAL innards.” Just like Galileo’s, my ideas were rejected.

The most popular drink that summer was Tab, a diet soda that tasted like liquid tin. Unfortunately, our Tab machine was always broken and we offered no other diet drinks. After placing an order for the jumbo popcorn with extra butter, most people asked for a large Tab. This is when things got ugly. “What?” they would always scream at me. “It’s broken?” Then they’d ask to see the manager, as if through sheer assertiveness they could get the machine fixed. I always had the urge to enlighten them: “Look, you’re about to consume ten thousand calories of fat, so a diet drink isn’t going to make a difference. In fact, may I suggest some innards?”

My summer at the movie theater taught me one thing: I had to look for a better-paying job, preferably one that did not involve selling Jujubes. A string of jobs followed, but none ever paid well. My efforts at amassing funds were not hugely successful.