From a “Village Idiot” column by Jim Mullen:

Driving past a fast-food restaurant today, I spotted a sign out front that said, “FUN JOBS! Apply inside!”

Fun jobs. The sign seemed to contradict something my dad used to say to me at least five times a week when I was a teenager: “If it was fun, they wouldn’t call it work.” His other favorite sayings were, “That bed won’t make itself,” “That lawn won’t mow itself,” “This house won’t paint itself,” and the one we always hated to hear, “That fire you kids set in the garage won’t go out by itself.”

Still, I wonder: What could these “fun jobs” possibly be? Cleaning the restrooms? That’s not much fun. If it was fun, kids would do it at home. If it was fun, the customers would pick up after themselves. Perhaps that’s why so many places have stopped cleaning their restrooms — it’s just not fun.

It’s, like, a job. …

Here’s the perfect first, fun job for a young high-school student: cellphone tester. The kids would work on commission. The phone companies would give them a cut of their parents’ bill — say, 15 percent. So if your phone bill is $100, your high-schooler would only make $15 that month. But if they can drive your bill up to $700 or so, they could make a decent amount of cash.

Some of them might even be able to test two phones at a time. They wouldn’t have to learn how to make change the way they would at that “fun” fast-food job, and they wouldn’t have to wear a uniform, a hairnet or a nametag.

It’d be like hardly working at all. What a fun job!