Day 65 of 100

“I was popular adjacent in high school.”

In my neighborhood growing up there was a community pool across the street from my house. And for years it sat in disrepair. The water was green, the fence surrounding the pool was falling down and no one went there unless you wanted to test your luck with tetanus.

When I was a freshman in high school, my dad joined the board and I spent my summers helping to rip down the fence, pour new concrete, clean out and repair the pool (turns out one of the lights was broken and it was sending electric shocks out into the water). It seemed like most of the neighborhood came together to fix up this pool.

Finally, after several months, we were done. The pool was blue, the grass was green, and the fence was chain link. Families started going again, and they needed someone to keep the pool clean.

“I can do it!” I told my dad.

“You can’t do it alone” he replied.

Luckily, in the neighborhood lived the star football player and his brother who was a star baseball player. Their good friend was the stereotypical “bad kid who was actually a good kid,” and I moved quickly to hire all of them.

Which was brilliant I might add. Instantly got to hang with the popular kids in high school, and they would have all their friends come to the pool, and they let me hang out, which was cool. And, more importantly, we all became real friends.

Not sure if there is a point to this story except if you are 14 year old freshman in high school, you should always hire the popular seniors. It made high school way more fun, and you get some good friends along the way.