My son can’t hold together a continuous storyline with his action figures for shit, but boy does that kid have a thing or two to teach me about business.
My wife and I had, in our picturesque vision of parenthood, promised to help my son with a lemonade stand this summer. A few weeks ago, we paid up. We got him outfitted with two pitchers of lemonade, a table, some chairs, a sign, coolers full of ice, a fan, some tunes, and some sunglasses. My boy went to work. With his arse parked in a too-big-for-him sized chair and his visor, my son showed me what’s what about patience, market demand, and giving back.
It took a while for people to get rolling around the neighborhood, but once they did, he had them in his clutches. My wife and I sat and helped with keeping change straight and hoofing the ice chest. Until people started trickling in to shop his wares, he was content to sit in the sunshine and listen to our carefully selected, bubbly music.
We convinced my son to only charge what people wanted to pay, and people apparently wanted to pay about a buck each, some paying more. As my dad says, people like choice. He made about thirty dollars, and he donated half to the state wildlife center (they have, after all, taken in our donations of baby birds, opossum, and squirrels). My wife and I promised to match whatever he donated, so we may have at least paid for the food for our animal refugees.
I never had a lemonade stand as a kid. In fact, I don’t remember any money-making enterprise other than trying to sell toys to neighbors. I never understood why they wouldn’t buy my discarded shit. I am proud to have helped my son with his lemonade stand, no matter how profitable. I am proud of his patience, a virtue from which he regularly lapses. I am proud that he donated half of his money to a cause of his choosing. I think I can ride this happy feeling for a while, and, if I apply myself, even employ his sales practices in my own work.
Thank you, son.
Have a good day!
Otto Scungy
Let’s make lots of money!
I like cold beverages
This Duck Song is an earworm
I’m a happy miser!
Have a good day!
Otto Scungy
