A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that every now and then I find random ways to earn some extra money. Well, one of these opportunities came up this month and now I have a crisp 100 dollar bill in my pocket.
I have a friend whose parents are quite wealthy. They have a cabin in Wisconsin and twice a year, they hire their son and his friends to spend a day working at the cabin. We do things like yard work, dock work, and other miscellaneous tasks. Basically, in the spring we prepare the cabin for summer use and in the fall we winterize it.
It can be hard work (in the physical labor sense), but here’s the catch: It’s just a bunch of guys who are all friends and have the ability to have a great time doing anything, so it never feels like work at all! It’s the best 100 bucks I make twice a year.
This is how Cabin Clean-Up day went two weeks ago: All the guys met at a local donut shop and everyone got donuts and coffee on the dad’s tab. Then we all drove up in the parent’s mini-RV which has a Playstation in it. It’s about an hour and half drive out there and then we stopped at the cheese store (it is Wisconsin after all) for award-winning string cheese.
When we arrived at the cabin, my friend’s mom greeted us with a homemade treat — so we’d eaten three times already and hadn’t done any work yet. At last, we began to do some work. It wasn’t too hard, just hauling stuff from the garage to the boathouse or vice versa. Some guys worked on yard duty; raking leaves and picking up sticks that had fallen over the winter. Other guys did random tasks like cleaning the hot tub or setting up hammocks, etc.
Then we had a delicious lunch cooked by his mom. After lunch we worked on putting the dock in. This is always the hardest task, but it can be fun, especially if someone falls in the water…then it’s hilarious. This year, putting in the dock was interrupted by the appearance of water snakes. So work came to a halt as we splashed around trying to catch the snakes. Which we did.
After the dock was completed, his mom brought us treats from Dairy Queen. Then we put the boat in and finished up any remaining tasks that the dad told us to do. At the end of the day, my friend’s dad handed out $100 bills. Essentially, I get $100 to stuff myself silly with food while hanging out with some of my favorite people in the world and laughing the entire time. It really is one of my favorite days of the year. And then we get to do it all over again in the Fall.
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