This weekend I learned about the cottage industry of ‘day’ and ‘sleep away’ camp. For those of you growing up in real America and requiring a quick primer, ‘day camp’ is where you send children for the day, then pick them up in the evening. ‘Sleep away camp,’ however, entails actually going somewhere else and sleeping overnight. Both industries (if they can be bifurcated) are apparently built around the premise that rich parents need something to do with their kids during the summer.
I think I can do some good for this country by blowing up this entire structure. Back in real America, if you’re 12 and it’s summer, you find your ass a job. There’s no excuse for being in junior high and not knowing how to at least operate a grain cart. So we take all these privileged children, and put them to work picking strawberries and melons in fields across the country. We would boost the economy and help Long Island be a little less of a joke in the process.
The economic boost would be immediate. Picking jobs are available, Americans just aren’t willing to do them – which is why we have to import our labor. These children would be taking jobs from migrant workers that typically send a large portion of their wages back home through remittances. Instead of that money going to Mexico and the Dominican Republic, it stays here to be spent on Ralph Lauren shirts that, though manufactured in Vietnam, are sold in American malls.
The bigger benefit, however, is that Long Island gets its shit in order. The place is seriously an embarrassment. The kids it produces need to learn what it’s like to work for something. Floating this idea over the weekend, I was told the kids would just refuse to work. Good. Then they don’t eat. Maybe they’ll starve. One more problem solved. Bitter end.
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