The Lemonade Stand

My kids have been hounding me all summer to have a lemonade stand. Yesterday, we had no other plans, it was sunny and 32 degrees, I had some frozen pink lemonade in the freezer and a sleeve of Styrofoam cups. It was time.

The kids made two cardboard signs that advertised "lemonade 25 cents and free cookie." One sign was for the table and one would be waved at thirsty passers by. We were nearly ready.

The first sign of trouble came when we tried to organize our "float." My son was certain he would never see this money again and protested loudly. "That's my money for Disney!" he cried. After much discussion, we had his approval and his money. We were in the pink lemonade business.

We had been in business for a while and hadn't attracted a single customer. Had we underestimated the global economic recession? Had we priced ourselves out of the market? Was it true that a Facebook page was required?

And then it happened. A 15-passenger van spied our stand and turned around. In the pink lemonade business I had heard of 15-passenger vans (who hadn't?), but I thought it was a myth. Out jumped a mother and her seven children! All eight wanted a glass of our fine pink lemonade and their free cookie.

We were thrilled that we had sold our first eight glasses of lemonade, but quickly realized that our first sale had depleted half of our total supply for the day and we were in trouble. The beauty of the pink lemonade business is that you can easily close the business and have all staff jump in the car for a frantic trip to the grocery store to buy more lemonade and that's what we did. I hoped that we hadn't lost too many sales while we were gone, but knew we had done the only thing we could do in light of our poor initial planning.

Our lack of supply seemed to increase demand in the neighbourhood and upon our return we were selling lemonade faster than I could make it. It was a good time to be in the pink lemonade business.

We were now running out of cups and I had a tough decision to make. The last thing I wanted to do was close down again, but didn't see any other way. A hastily called staff meeting and a decision to make another run to the store and we were back in business for good.

We were soon out of cookies and there was no way I was going back to the store. We should have included "while supplies last" on our signs, but hadn't thought of that. So, we simply stroked out the free offer on the signs and hoped no one would call us on the bait and switch tactic so common in the pink lemonade business.

While I ran in and out, making more lemonade, my son disappeared to watch SpongeBob SquarePants on TV and I wasn't sure if he was ever to return. The pink lemonade business isn't for everyone.

My daughter was intoxicated with the action and the money coming in and rarely left the table. After my son left to live in a pineapple under the sea, my daughter handled all transactions and sign waving. Twice she saw a chance to go inside for a glass of water and threw the sign to me as I sat on my lawn chair. I realized that I had taken on the immediate appearance of a homeless person and hoped for her speedy return.

We had been in business for several hours and business was not slowing down. My son had returned to the table, my daughter was wheeling and dealing and I was in the kitchen, measuring my four cups of cold water, mess everywhere.

"Daddy, hurry, we have more customers!" came the cry from the door.

My heart pounding, my breath short, I was going as fast as I could. We were running out of cups and lemonade again. The excitement, the thrill.

This is why I got into the pink lemonade business.