25 - 50 cents

went for a vespa ride around the neighborhood and noticed four kids in their driveway sitting on kid-sized chairs at a kid-sized table...with a kid-made sign announcing their sale of 25cent drinks...pulled over to investigate what they were selling...your choice of kid-squeezed fresh orange juice or bottled pomegranate lemonade...the oldest one, a 9 year-old girl, had a little electric scooter parked in the driveway and they were all very excited to see a big one like i was riding...asked them what they were going to do with the money, and all at once they [loudly] stated different things but the one that stood out was a 7 year-old boy who simply said they wanted to sell more than the other neighborhood kids down the street...i didn't have any money so i told them i would come back and they were tickled since i was their first customer of the day...i chuckled as i rode away and remembered my brother and i selling lemons from our trees in our front yard...i made my dad go back with me and we walked down the street back to the land of amateur entrepreneurship....we rounded the corner and bought two drinks from them, one orange juice and one lemonade, and you would have thought they just made their first million...what kid doesn't like shiny coins??
btw...the o.j. was pre-poured by a mom, but they were heavy pourers with the lemonade and i think they will make great bartenders someday.

on the way back, we stopped by 'the other' driveway marketplace manned by slightly older kids selling blended drinks...their approach was a little different in that your purchase was a steeper 50cents but came with your choice of four dirt-gravel putting greens and one go at it...they had a blender out on the table and had put ice in it and had squeezed lemon juice into it as well, however, my dad had to help them try to hook up their blender with an extension cord because it was not working yet...after many minutes of waiting, one kid running to his house and riding his bike back to us dragging another extension cord, and discussing many things amongst themselves while forgetting about their waiting customers, they fired it up right after my dad and i noticed that the blender was full of lemon seeds in addition to the ice and lemon juice. during all of this set-up, the four other kids had come over to this stand with their cups and their lemonade, and they were all playing on the putting 'greens'...they were also making deals to play and to have a blended drink like us other paying customers, failing to realize that they were spending the income they had earned only 5 minutes earlier...they ended up having too much ice and not enough liquid in the blender, so my dad and another kid helped them out by adding some lemonade and more ice until it was the right consistency...the blending ceased and now they were all buzzing around the table asking for samples...they poured some into a cup for us and were not even concerned with taking our 50cents, so we had to ask them who to give the money to...a hand shot up, we paid, and walked away as they were still hovering around the table waiting for their icy treat and more putt-putt golf.
btw...it was a pretty tasty blended pomegranate lemonade-lemon-ice drink on a warm day...and i didn't even find any seeds...must have been on puree. ;)