The Lemonade Stand

I was driving around town this afternoon, and for whatever reason this childhood memory popped into my head and I just started laughing.

Here's what happened. 

It was around 1970; I was probably about ten years old at the time and my friend (let's call him Ted) from down the street was about eight.  We were bored and with nothing to do we came up with the bright idea to have a lemonade stand.

Since it was already about 1 o'clock, we didn't really have time to build an actual stand.  So, we "borrowed" my dad's chaise lounge, flipped it over sideways into an L-shape, stuck a scrap piece of plywood across the top and TA-DAH!!!! instant lemonade stand.

Ted "borrowed" the mini Dixie cup dispenser from his parent's bathroom, a package lemon flavored Kool-ade from the cupboard, and his mom's finest Tupperware pitcher, while I "borrowed" a fresh lemon from our refrigerator.  We mixed up our lemonade using the water hose and waited for our first customer.

We waited....and waited....and waited.  Finally, one of the girls from across the street rode past us on her bike and asked for a cup of lemonade.  We asked for our dime up front.  She said we could get it from her mom.  (Let's just say we knew our customer base and knew better than to extend credit to this customer....and her mom.)  Needless to say, we lost that customer.

Long about 3 o'clock, we were about to give up and drink the lemonade ourselves.  We had not sold the first cup.  As we started gathering things together, Ted noticed that the paper lady was coming down the street delivering the afternoon paper.

Ted told me to stay put while he ran towards the street.  As Sandra the paper lady shoved the afternoon paper into the neighbor's mailbox, Ted laid down IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, so Sandra could not pass.

Since this was in the 70's in a subdivision, the only "traffic" our street had was at 6am in the mornings when our dads left for work, the mailman at noon, the paper lady at 3pm, and at 5pm when our dads came home. 

So even though Ted laying down in the middle of the street TODAY would warrant a call to DFACS, back then it meant a good butt-whoopin' if his mom found out. 

As luck would have it, she just happened to be looking at the window at that time and our lemonade stand went out of business at that exact moment.

However, since Ted managed to stop Sandra, she decided to buy a glass of lemonade.  She forked over 40 cents (her three hellions were with her) and we poured the lemonade.  When she saw the size of the mini Dixie cups, she insisted that for the price she was paying she and her hellions were entitled to three refills each.  

We were kind of pissed, but being ten years old and eight years old and she was an adult we didn't have much of a say in the matter.

Factor in the fact that Ted's mom had since discovered her mini Dixie cup dispenser was missing from the bathroom, along with the pilfered Kool-ade and the fact that her best Tupperware pitcher was being manhandled by the paper lady and her rowdy brood, let's just say she was not very happy with us, either.

Ted got his butt-whoopin' and I got sent home....and that was the last time we ever decided to have a lemonade stand.