Finding Nemo is playing every hour on the hour this week. The theater teems with ornery, hyperactive kids for the half hour before each show. We have thirty minutes between each surge to sweep the floors of the concession stand before the next wave arrives to plead with their parents for four-dollar plastic buckets of junk food.

 For $4.75 an hour after taxes (a little more than one of those buckets costs), it isn’t the best summer job and it only feels like the worst when Finding Nemo is playing. Usually we have plenty of time between shows to sweep up popcorn and replenish cups, buckets, and lids from the strangely-shaped cupboards underneath the counter where you have to grope blindly while on your knees. It’s even more exciting when looking for the vats of simulated butter, which leave ominous oil-and-artificial-flavoring cakes on the bottom of the shelves. I used to order “butter topping” with my movie popcorn. After one day of pouring vats of it into the heating and dispensing machine, I decided I could never order it again.

I wish I could say it has been an educational experience, that it has made me a better person, or that for whatever reason I am secretly Forrest Gump. But the truth is that I spent the summer in an air conditioned theater with free movies to earn enough money to pay for gas. And during the summer, that’s all that matters in a teenager’s world.

Things to Notice About This Essay

1. Asked to write about his summer activities, this writer tells the truth about his job in a clever and entertaining way.

2. There is no great lesson being taught but still the essay offers a clear focus-what he did last summer-and specifics that make the experience vivid and memorable to the reader.

3. The writer uses irony in the contrast of his wages and the popcorn purchases. He uses humor in explaining his recent decision to swear off “butter topping.” Small touches like this are just enough (he’s not applying to clown college).

4. Although the writer says he hasn’t learned anything at the movies, his essay suggests that he thought carefully about his experience and can write about it clearly and with wit.