This is what happens when I have to sit in front of a computer for hours on end with nothing to do…
I was staying at my cottage and was paying for it by working at the town store. I went in to work one day and there was someone new at the counter. I went to find the boss and ask who the new girl was, and she told me that her name was Kaley and that she would be working there during the summer to raise money for college. I walked out to the front of the store and took my normal lounging position behind the counter. I was thinking about going for a swim that afternoon and suddenly I became aware that there was someone talking to me. “Hey. My name is Kaley. You look like you have been working here for a while and I was wondering if you could sorta help me find my way around the place.” asked Kaley, while flashing me a smile. “Sure. I’m always glad to help out. I was thinking about going to the beach this afternoon. If you aren’t working, maybe you would like to come too. It’s a great way to meet people around here.”, was my automatic reply. Kaley readily agreed to that and we were soon making plans to go to the beach later on.. Our boss came out and saw us talking, and automatically sent us off to different parts of the store to do some work, probably thinking we were planning to take over the world, or if not that, then just take over the store. She had been kinda paranoid ever since the burglary the summer before. It happened late at night when the only people in the store were the boss and a couple looking for some food for their young daughter. They were in the Gerber area and had just picked out what they wanted to buy, and were just getting ready to go to the cash register and pay. However, before they could get out of the aisle, two people wearing ski masks burst through the doors, and pointed a gun at them. They ordered them to sit in the aisle and then demanded that the boss, Ms. Gumblie, give them all of the money that she had in the register. She gave them everything that she could find in the register, as well as all of her pocket change. Before leaving, the crooks fired off a couple of shots into the roof and a couple of lights fell down. We later found Ms. Gumblie passed out on the floor in front of the cash register. Ever since that day, she has been a lot more jumpy then before. I am now working for five hours a day, doing whatever I am told to, and I now get to spend my time with a girl who is my age, and is good looking. I am thinking about going to the beach when Ms. Gumblie decides to let us go home earlier then we first expected, as the store isn’t very busy, and she believes that she can handle it herself. We both went to our cabins, and agreed to meet at the store in half an hour. I had gotten used to walking around, and so walked to the store. I was not expecting Kaley to drive up in a new convertible, but she did none the less. She told me that her parents were extremely rich and this had been a present so she could have something to drive around in while at her aunt and uncles cabin, which was where she was now. She was staying at the old Schumacher mansion, which was the largest and most ornate cabin on the beach. She invited me into the car, and we took the one-minute drive down to the beach. There were already lots of people there, but we managed to find a spot where we could set up out stuff, and be equally in the shade and in the sun. We decided that after a day of work we needed a relaxing swim, and so we swam out to the raft that the resort kept out all summer long. When we got to the raft, we climbed on and began to talk about our lives. “I live in Orange County and go to school at Southern Tip Private School. “, I said to start the conversation. “That’s awesome”, replied Kaley, “I wish that I could go to a school like that. My dad is a big politician in Florida, and bodyguards are constantly following me around. It’s so annoying to have someone watch your every move. I can’t even talk to a guy without them watching.” “You mean their watching us now?”, I asked while pretending to look around and cover us up. “No silly, I’m on vacation. They are still in Florida trying to make sure some adoring fan doesn’t accidentally bump my dad.” “Oh”, was my only reply. I then asked her what life at her school was like and she told me that it was the most boring school she had ever went to, except for the day that someone lit a Chemistry lab on fire. “Someone lit a Chemistry lab on fire? You gotta be kidding!”, was my immediate response. “I’m not kidding. This guy, Brent, decided one day that he didn’t like the way that the class was being taught, and went into the chemical room while the teacher wasn’t looking, and took two of the flammable ones and slowly spread them around the room during the class. He created a trail from the chemical room to the door and made sure that everyone was out except him. He then pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the two pools of chemicals on fire. He was later charged with arson, and is doing ten years in juvenile court.”, she replied matter-of-factly. I couldn’t think of anything smart to say, so I just said, “Awesome.” “What is life at your school like”, inquired Kaley. “Southern Tip Private Scholl is the most boring school I have ever been to. We have to get dressed up to go to school and are not allowed to wear jeans ever, on penalty of a week’s detention. We are expected to get into schools like Stanford, and if we don’t the school claims it will be a grand disgrace for them and we will never be allowed back on campus for the rest of our lives. That’s why I come here during the summer, so I can get away from the crazy teachers and people at my school.” “That has got to suck. My school is a public school and I am very glad daddy didn’t put me in a private school. Why are you in a private school anyway?”, Kaley asked me innocently. “I am in a private school because some psychologist said that I was too smart from a regular school and that I would better benefit from the individualized courses offered at Southern Tip. I was never sure about this, but my parents agreed to it, and so I am now going to a school full of people who think that their only goal in life should be going to Stanford, while I just want to get an education and have fun doing it. It’s getting kind of late, we should probably start to head back in.”, I said. “Probably”, said Kaley, “We can get together at the party later tonight. How about you come by my place and pick me up at say, 7:30″ “Sure”, I replied, ” I’ll be sure to be there” “Great. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you then”, was her reply. We swam back to the shore and then went back to our cabins. Mine was only slightly smaller then hers and we had to pass it as she went back to hers. “Nice place. Is it yours?”, inquired Kaley. “Yes, it’s mine. It was given to me as a Christmas gift by my grandparents.” “Sweet. You’ll have to show me around sometime.” “Anytime is fine. We can talk about it sometime at work or something. ” “Cool. I’ll see you later tonight.” “See ya” I went into my cabin and decided that I needed a shower. I got out of my swim suit and jumped in. I got myself all washed up, and then got out and put on some new clothes. I had to have supper, so I went to the fridge to see what there was. Fish. I had been eating fish for the last week, and was beginning to get sick of it, but hadn’t saved enough money to go to the store to buy some more yet. I sat down and had a short meal, and then did the dishes.
I was just finishing putting the dishes away when Kaley drove up in her convertible. I went outside and asked, “Didn’t you leave that at the beach?” “Ya, I did, but I then went back down later to get it because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t stolen. It is brand new and I just wanted to be sure. Do you have a garage around here somewhere?”, she asked. “Yes, I do. It is around back.” “Sweet, can I park my car back there. I don’t have a garage at our cabin and I though we could just walk to the party.” “Sure you can park it back there. I only have my Corvette back there, and there is plenty of room for another car. If you want, you can leave it here for all of the time that you are here.” “Awesome.”, replied Kaley. She took her car around to the garage and parked it. We then locked up the house, and started off to the party, which was about three kilometers away. As we walked, we began to talk about stupid things that we had done in our lives, and Kaley told me a story that she had done before her dad was a politician. “Before my dad got elected, which was last year, me and some of my friends went down our main street and flashed any guys our age that we could find. That got me in a lot of trouble since my dad was planning on running for election, and he though that this could not be good for his campaign. Luckily, it never made the news and we didn’t have to worry about it.”, Kaley said while laughing. “What is the most stupid thing that you have ever done?”, she asked me. “The most stupid thing that I have ever done has got to be when I decided that I could fly, and I jumped off a bridge into the ocean. It wasn’t very high up, but it still put me into the hospital for a couple of months.” We arrived at the place where the party was happening, and walked in. There was some sort of Britney Spears music playing, and Kaley asked me to dance. “Why not? I haven’t danced since grade 9 gym class, but I suppose I can try.” “Awesome. Now let’s bust a move!” WE danced all night long, and by the time the party was over, we were the only ones still sober. We ended up being the designated drivers, and drove everyone home who lived to far away to walk. Our last rides were my neighbors, and we were using their cars, so when we were done, Kaley came into my place and I got her a glass of pop. She said that she didn’t want to have to go home tonight, and asked if I had any spare bedrooms. “I have about eight. You can take your pick, if you want.”, was my reply. She asked me to show her to one that was near the front of the house, and I took her to the second biggest room in the place. She thanked me for the place, said goodnight, and then I went to my bedroom, and fell asleep.
I was woken up at about three in the morning by Kaley pounding on my door. “What?”, I answered groggily. “I saw a light in the bay over there. Do you know what it is?”, she asked excitedly. I was suddenly very awake, and said, “Just a second. I’ll be right out, and then we can take the boat and go investigate.” “Okay, I just want to know what is going on here. This place was always so quiet, according to my aunt and uncle.” “We are going to have to take the Corvette. That’s the only car they will allow in the harbor at this time of morning. Can you go get the keys off the kitchen counter, and go start it? It’s a stick shift. ” “I can dig it”, replied Kaley, seeming way to awake for this time of the morning. I soon heard my engine fire up, and the car was in front of the house by the time I got there. We went to the marina, and were let in as soon as the guard saw the car, although he didn’t know the girl driving it. We quickly went to the boat and started it up. We flew out of the boathouse and sped towards the cove on the other side of the lake. When we got to the cove, all that we found was a small dock, and an old abandoned cottage and boathouse. “Let’s look around a little bit”, suggested Kaley. We got out of the boat and walked up to the cabin’s front door. When we got close to it, the door mysteriously opened up by itself. “Let’s go in and look around. The light is probably just some old light then is still getting power”, I suggested. “Let’s do it. Even though I’m not sure about your theory of the light. It looked too bright to be an old light. It looked like it was brand new”, responded Kaley. We walked in and went into what looked like it had once been a kitchen. We looked around in the cabinets and under the sink, but all that we found was a bill for cleaning solution dated the year before. Kaley put it into her pocket and decided that we needed to take it back with us. We looked around the rest of the house, but didn’t find any lights or other bills. There was one locked door but we decided that we shouldn’t try to break in yet, and that we should be getting back to the cabin so that we could have a couple of hours sleep before we had to go into work. We went out, got into my boat and took off across the lake. We docked the boat and got back into the car, and then sped off to the cabin. We parked and then went to our separate rooms. “Good night. See you in the morning”, we said to each other. We went to bed and didn’t hear a thing until the morning, when the birds woke us up.
I got dressed, and when I got to the kitchen, I found Kaley already there. “Good morning”, she said giddily. “Good morning. How are you?”, I asked. “Still kinda freaked out about last night, but other then that, I am fine.” “Are you sure your aunt and uncle won’t mind that you stayed here overnight?” “I’ll just tell them that I stayed at the house that the party was at because no one was sober enough to drive home, except me, and I had to supervise.” “Whatever works, I guess. When do you work today?” “Same shift as you. We can drive there together, I guess. Since we used your car last night, we’ll use mine.” “Cool. I guess we have to leave soon, hey?” “Ya, we do. We have to be there in, like, fifteen minutes. We best be off.” We got into Kaley’s Jaguar and took off down the road to the store. We parked around back and went in right on time. We got behind the counter, and began a day of waiting around for someone to come to the store to get an ice creak cone or to refill their supply of toilet paper. A lot of the day was just us discussing what happened the night before and what could be behind the locked door. Kaley thought that it might be a basement, and I thought that it could be a basement, a bathroom or a secret room where they did experiments to develop illicit products. My last idea was Kaley’s favorite because it made her laugh. We were thinking about going back when we got off work, and Kaley said that she had a lock pick kit at her place. We decided that we would take that and that we would hopefully then find out what was behind the door. The rest of the day was relatively unexciting, but there were many customers, so we had to stay for our whole shift. When we got out, we decided that we would go down the coast to a place that we had heard about. We decided to take my boat, so that we could go to the cabin right after supper. We had a lovely dinner, which the management insisted was on the house, and we then took off down the lake to the cabin. Kaley explained the reason why we didn’t have to pay like this, “They recognized me. My dad likes that restaurant when we come here, and he helped build a new kitchen. Whenever we go there, they give us a free meal.” “That explains that.” We kept talking about the things that we saw along the coast, until we got close to the cabin, and we then both stopped talking. Kaley had snuck away from work earlier in the day and had her lock pick kit with her. We crept up to the door, which again opened by itself. We went right to the locked door, and within a minute Kaley had the thing open. “When you are at home by yourself a lot, you learn a lot of odd skills.”, Kaley said when she saw the amazed expression on my face. We slowly walked down the stairs and what we saw amazed us. There was a full-fledged counterfeiting operation going on in the basement. We were about to leave when all of a sudden a bunch of people burst through the door into the basement. We quickly went and hid in a closet, and could hear what they were saying, which completely scared us, because of what they were saying. “Someone broke it tonight” “You don’t say.” “Well, what are we going to do about it?” “If we ever catch them, I am first going to rip out both of their arms, and then I will slowly cut off their tongue so that they will never be able to tell what happened here.” “I like your thinking, Snake.” We both began to shake and I slowly prayed that they would leave us alone. They began to make some counterfeit money, and this was the longest that I have ever been in a closet. When they were finally done, it was two in the morning, and they put the money in a duffel bag, and then went out. We waited in the closet for an hour before going out and quickly ran down to the dock. The boat was still there, but the gas tank was empty. We then ran to the interstate and hoped that someone would come by. “Please let someone come by “, said Kaley, ” oh crap, now it’s starting to rain.” “Here, take my coat.” “Thankyou.” We waited for about half an hour and finally a semi came by that was heading towards the general are of the beach. The driver agreed to take us as far as the marina but couldn’t take us any farther or he would be off schedule. That was fine with us, as Kaley’s car was parked at the marina. When we got to the marine, we had to jump the fence because the guard was out on rounds. We got to my boathouse, and went in through the side door. We came out the front door and went to the parking lot. We saw the guard and he make a comment like, “You kids were out late tonight. No hanky panky going on, is there?” I began to say something, but Kaley interrupted me and said that we had been making out all night in the middle of the lake. When we were in the car and driving back, I asked her, “Why did you tell the guard that we were making out all night?” “Would you prefer that I told him that we had been trapped in a closet together all night? That would have given him some other ideas as to what we had been doing.” Good point.” Kaley then decided that she should probably go to her cabin tonight, but made me promise to come by the next day. When I got back to my room I fell asleep in my clothes, and didn’t wake up until ten the next morning. I didn’t have to work that day, and as soon as I was awake, my phone rang.
“Hello” “Hey, it looks like you’re up and ready to face the world today!”, replied Kaley on the other end of the phone. “I’m awake, at least”, was my reply. “How do you feel about going to a craft show today? Auntie wants me to go, but I don’t want to have to go to all of the booths that she goes to, and I thought we could find something much more interesting in some of the other booths.”, said Kaley. “Sure, just give me half an hour to have a shower and eat something for breakfast. ” “Sure, see ya in thirty”, said Kaley. I quickly hopped in the shower and got all cleaned up from our misadventures of the night before. I then went to the kitchen and had a bowl of Frosted Flakes for breakfast. Just as I was finishing up, Kaley and her aunt showed up in the driveway. Kaley came up to the door, and walked in. she gave me a little punch and told me to get up and get ready, we were leaving in five minutes. I decided that I would leave the dishes for later, grabbed some cash from my secret stash, and was out the door in three minutes. I quickly hopped in the back seat, where Kaley was, and we took off down the road. About an hour later, we got to the craft show. We decided that we would meet Kaley’s aunt and uncle at the food area around noon, and then took off to look around. Kaley had this idea that we should look around not at the craft sale, but next door, at a spy shop. I said I really didn’t mind, and we snuck out to see what we could find. We found quite a few interesting gadgets, but the one that interested us the most was a tiny little video camera that could be received from over twenty miles away. We pooled our money together and bought that. We then went and hid it in the trunk of Kaley’s car, which her aunt and uncle were driving. We went back into the craft sale, and began to look around. Kaley’s aunt walked up to us and began to show us all of the things that she had bought. Suddenly, it dawned on her that she had never met me. Kaley said, “This is Douglas. He is staying at the cabin just down the row from us, which is his by the way, and works the same shifts as me at the sore. ” “Charmed to meet you”, replied Kaley’s aunt. We then went to have lunch. Kaley and I had cheeseburgers, and her aunt and uncle had fillet mignon. When we had finished lunch, we decided that we should be getting back to the beach. Kaley asked to be dropped off at my place, and her aunt and uncle said that was fine as long as she was back before they woke up the next day. When we got there, I got my huge package out of the car and took it in. we went to one of the back rooms, and began to unpack it. The largest part was the monitor and speakers. We got that hooked up and then went and put the aerial on the roof. Once we were sure that we had it working, we went a put one camera at the store, as a joke. We then drove to the marina, got a can full of gas, and took off towards the cabin across the lake. We placed the cameras in different locations, and then filled the boat with gas. Kaley wanted to take the boat back, so she took off in the boat and I drove back to the marina. We met there, and quickly went back to my cabin. We sat down in front of the monitor, started the recorder, and waited. After a couple of hours, we saw something off on one of the cameras that we had placed in the basement. We magnified it and saw that it was the people that we had seen earlier, and they were making more counterfeit money. We turned up the audio and began to listen in. We got shots of them making the money and then got a shot of where the money was hidden. We recorded this for about three hours, and then stopped the tape and edited out the stuff that wasn’t worthwhile, like the first two hours. With the completed tape, we went to the state police and showed it to them. They told us that normally they would have to charge us with breaking and entering, but in this situation, it would not be necessary. They told us to follow them, and we hopped in my car and took off after the cruisers. When we got to the cabin, the police quickly surrounded it and ordered that the perpetrators come out right away. They didn’t come out, and snipers were sent to different locations. “I don’t like the looks of this..”, commented Kaley in a whisper ” Me either, but just think, we are stopping a large counterfeiting ring.” Just then, we heard shots ring out and Kaley screamed. The police barged in and a couple of minutes later they came out with all of the counterfeiters in handcuffs and led them to their cruisers. We were told that we would probably have to go to court and testify, but for now we could go home. We went back to my cabin, and fell asleep on the couches in the living room. We got up in the morning, had a small breakfast, and then went to work. Kaley’s aunt and uncle came in looking for her, and she told them that she had got up early and walked to work. They believed her, and went to the beach.
That was five years ago. Kaley and I are now married and are expecting our first child in May. We will never forget that summer, the summer we met, the summer that we were almost killed, and the summer we fell in love. We think back on those days now, and are thankful that we got away and that we were never found while we hid in the closet or while we planted to surveillance cameras. They guys who were creating counterfeit money went to trial and were convicted and are now serving a sentence of ten years each, and the prosecution says that had it not been for our tapes, they probably would still be making funny money today. We didn’t know what was going to happen that summer, but we wouldn’t have had it any other way. We live at the cabin now year round, and are very happy.