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By Kristine Hayes

Our local Chick-fil-A has a help wanted sign posted.

They’re paying $15 an hour to start.

I don’t begrudge today’s young people making a decent wage.

Especially at any job where they have to address me as "ma’am."

At my first job I was addressed as "Cougar."

Today that nickname would land me in jail.

In 1986, it was perfectly innocent.

For me, 1986 will always be remembered as the year of Top Gun.

Best. Movie. Ever.

I spent that summer working as a counselor at a Girl Scout camp.

I was responsible for supervising, educating and entertaining a pack of 12 young women.

I served as a surrogate mother, teacher, nurse and relationship adviser.

I helped cook, clean and maintain the living quarters for the staff and campers.

The job was 24/7 and lasted 10 weeks.

If I’d been paid what my Chick-fil-A server was making, I would have made a salary equivalent to the gross domestic product of Sri Lanka.

Instead, I made $842.

Before taxes.

That works out to 0.0002 cents per hour.

That’s not even considered sub minimum wage.

That’s considered volunteering.

It wasn’t just about the money, though.

There were other perks.

Can you say, “all you can eat Girl Scout cookies?”

If calories were wages, I would have been a millionaire that summer.

But I didn’t need money back then.

Because I was engaged to be married.

To Tom Cruise.

At least that’s what I told my campers.

And they believed it.

Because six year olds aren’t that difficult to fool.

In today’s world, it’s a lot more difficult to fool someone.

Twenty-first century deepfake requires the use of advanced software and artificial intelligence.

Twentieth-century shallowfake required first-class postage and a willing accomplice.

Each week at camp, I’d receive a handwritten love letter with a return address of “Tom Cruise, Hollywood, California.”

Never mind the postmark read “Corvallis, Oregon.”

Which just happened to be where my best friend Kathleen lived.

Tom wrote his love letters to me on Garfield stationary.

He had absolutely perfect penmanship.

Did I mention six-year-olds aren’t that difficult to fool?

Any questions the campers might have had about the legitimacy of our relationship were easily laid to rest though.

Because I had an engagement ring.

Courtesy of Cracker Jacks.

Kathleen wrote such impassioned letters that by the end of the summer, even I began to believe them.

As summer camp was coming to an end, Tom became disenchanted with our long-distance relationship.

He broke up with me.

It may be true that money can’t buy you love.

But in 1986, $842 could buy a lot of tickets to see Top Gun.

— Kristine Hayes

Kristine Hayes is a freelance writer who writes humorous essays, personal finance articles and silly stories about her dogs. She lives in Portland, Oregon but hopes to one day move to Arizona. Her and her husband own four dogs that they train in scent work, which is just a polite way of saying their dogs sniff things all day long. You can learn more about her at her website.