Earsdropping: on a lemonade standoff
This time of year, the door-to-door polo-and-khaki-wearing sales people have new recruits: the downright determined kids ready to ream every last coin out of the neighborhood for a glass of their product — lemonade. While my description has an initial distrust, my better-self receives them with community-minded support, ready to reach into my coffers for some coinage to fund a local startup.
A blond kid in an oversized t-shirt and cargo shorts, who could barely see above our front window screen, peered in and spotted us making lunch. His pitch was brief and focused, that he and his quarter-sized compatriots were selling lemonade and we should make our way promptly to his address to purchase the product. In good faith, I told him that we would walk over shortly after finishing our meal prep. That satisfied him well enough to walk down our steps, only to immediately U-turn to offer free delivery (oh sure, but once you add a tip, they’ve cleaned out your wallet). What a salesman! He had a cold lead and figured he could sweeten the deal, not leaving any chance for us to ice him out if things soured. Reassuring him that we live by our promises, he was off to continue his door-to-door dash.
My glass-half-empty doubts had been filled from an experience at our last house. There were a group of kids cashing in selling candy up and down the street. With a community chorus in my mind, All for one, and one for all, I bought a 3 Musketeers bar — how fitting! — from the pre-teens. The following week they were back and wondering if I wanted more. I told them that my sugary stock was still sufficient. By their fourth visit, they didn’t like that answer and began to argue with me. Our sweets standoff ended in a stifled stymie. Soon these middle-school menaces filled with malice would pelt our front door with rocks at midnight for shutting down their shakedown.
Now in our new neighborhood, I charitably chanced more encounters, as Sylvia and I, to our word, headed to the lemonade stand. It was a bare bones operation with a blue folding table and a couple of chairs. We let our small citrus sommelier know that we were hustled over by his marketing team on the street. He advertised the array of their available options: lemonade $1, Caprisun or juice $2, or seltzer water $3. I see inflation has infiltrated all the way down to the infants. Sylvia and I only had $1 with us, so our options were paltry. We ordered a lemonade to share and watched the process play out. His right-hand man was pouring the sickly pale powdered lemonade into the cup from the pitcher, the right idea, until the top-dog abruptly corrected his form. The kid in control demonstrated company policy by putting the pitcher back on the ground. He proceeded to immerse our cup — and his fist — deep into the depths of the dregs. He fished out the full cup and drippingly hands it to us. We wordlessly walk away, holding the tainted lemonade at an arm’s length. At safe distance from the source, the lemonade returned to the earth, helping to contribute to the growth of nearby plants and protecting us from the pulpy Petri dish.
While I won’t write a one-star Yelp review or report them to the health department, I think maybe I’ll leave them a note that at the next board meeting they should put the other kid in charge.
