The Best Summer Jobs Ever!

If your summer jobs are like the ones we had in high school, you'll wear a lame uniform and a plastic name tag and spend each hour staring at the clock, counting down until your next 15-minute break.  That is, unless you're Harry Willsher, a 12-year-old from Britain.  Willsher just landed a job as a candy taster.  Yeah, seriously.  For the next year, Willsher will live a real-life "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" experience, working as a taste tester for the candy company Swizzles Matlow.  And he's not the only Brit with a cool job.

Ben Southall just won the competition for what has been called the "Best Job in the World": Beginning this July, Southall will work for six months as the caretaker of Hamilton Island, part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. He's paid about $100,000 US dollars to basically play in the sun--his duties include, "swimming, exploring, feeding the fish and cleaning the pool at a three-bedroom luxury villa."  Sounds like a dream job to us.

So we got to thinking: What if you could get paid to enjoy your summer?  What would be the coolest job on the planet? Here's what we came up with--and even though some of these aren't real jobs, we always liked to daydream while standing at the cash register waiting for the next customer:

• President Obama's teen adviser

• Water balloon thrower at the local swimming pool

• Suntan lotion applier (aka lifeguard)

• Sleep study participant

• Bubble wrap popper

• Slip 'n' slide competitor

• Professional karaoke singer

• Guinness Book of World Records monitor (you'd be the guy in the suit keeping track of how many times this guy spins on his head)

• Professional sports mascot

• YouTube viral video scout

• Campground rater

• Perpetual gameshow contestant

• Mini-golf/putt-putt course designer

So what's your perfect summer job?  If you could get paid to do anything this summer, what would it be?