< by JHK >

There comes a time when every child decides, “Today I’m going to get rich off lemonade.”

When the idea dawned on me, I grabbed my big sister and we hatched a scheme: We’d prop a table in the driveway, stir up a batch, and make some bank. At a quarter per cup, the lemonade would sell itself.

We hit some early snafus:

– We did not have lemonade, or lemons.

– We lived in the middle of nowhere — if every person who drove by made a purchase, we’d sell five cups.

– We had a rock driveway, which meant a wobbly table and spilt cups.

Unphased, we mined our resources and found a hose, an orange, and a patch of spearmint. I hauled the hose to the end of the driveway, Ann cranked the dial, and in a few seconds we had a 12 cups of sulfurous, warm water. We sliced up the orange and squeezed a few drops of juice into each cup. We  crushed the mint leaves, added a dollop of pulp to each glass, and had a dozen cups of mint-flavored orange juice.

“MINT-FLAVORED ORANGE JUICE!”

“MINT-FLAVORED ORANGE JUICE!”

It wasn’t selling. Tony, the guy who mowed our lawn, gave us a dime and called it “terrible.” A neighborhood lady, charmed by our enthusiasm, purchased the second cup—and dumped it out of her car window—and asked for her money back.

We didn’t make bank that day, but we did learn an important lesson: Get-rich-quick schemes don’t work.

Although, maybe if we tried limes…