#and no I’ll officially state rn I am not advocating for child labor
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The post i recently reblogged about the Romeo and Juliet with heelys in reminded me of the way I got my first heelys.
It was when we lived in the states (NYC area) and my mother had a drs appointment that was going to take at least an hour. I was 8, and allowed to either stay in the waiting room or go to the rooftop garden, but that was all.
At the age of eight I had gotten my first job that paid like, appreciable money (I worked for the family business for five dollars an hour prior to this but got a job with a friend of the family pulling 100 dollars a week doing two nights of office cleaning with them. Yea, child labor. Not the point of my funny story tho. I liked my money. I’m honestly not mad about it.)
So I had cash.
And damn I wanted heelys.
So I illicitly left the building and walked six blocks to the closest Modell’s (gotta go to mo’s) and bought my gorgeous heelys for 30 big bucks.
At this age I had taken to carting around a huge messenger bag for all my books and I had premeditated this excursion and packed an empty box in the bag to make it look full, chucked that in a crosswalk garbage bin and carried the shoebox back.
Not questioned by the mother. None the wiser I had left.
No one was awake to see me leave for school wearing them and no one was home to see me come home wearing them and I got away with this for literal years (I had had a fairly large growth spurt at 8 and bought two sizes too big so they fit for ages)
#eventually one time I got kicked out of a grocery store for heelying around#I think I was like 13 at that point#and my mother was like when in the hell did you get heelys#and I had to debate really quickly in my head whether the statute of limitations was up on my crime#I chose wrong and told her and got massively punished#but whatever lol I still had the heelys#and tbf like yes a lot of times I got punished for nothing#but HELL if I had an eight year old child that wandered off six blocks alone without telling me in NYC.#they would be punished#I deserved that one that’s so dangerous#I work with eight year olds at my job and they are babies#what was I thinking#I was a freaking fetus#I had no business doing that#heelys#and no I’ll officially state rn I am not advocating for child labor#just. because it worked out well in my case does not mean I think 8 year olds should be working#like I said they are babies#between that job and others I picked up tho I was able to save 15000 dollars by 13 and we needed that to live on when we left#cuz my mother didn’t work#that 15 grand saved our lives so I can’t be mad at it#when I got my first job above the table at 15 I was APPALLED at how little I could work and make#compared to my under the table work as a minor#it was almost not even worth it#8 bucks an hour 10 hours a week at shop rite#like mate I’m trying to put food on the table you think I can live on this?#I was INFURIATED with child labor laws when I was that age
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