Last Wednesday, our ten-year-old and his buddy, Forrest, held a lemonade stand.  Kyle mixed up the lemonade.  Kyle loaded a table, two chairs, and a tent into the wagon and brought it to the curb.  Kyle set up the stand, and built a sign out of scrap wood, and made a Facebook post that read, “The boys are selling tariff-free, American-made lemonade.  $.50 a glass or two for a dollar.  All proceeds go to capitalism.”  Ten and Forrest did the rest.

Their first customer was their down-the-block rivals: two big boys (“big boys” who were like 12 years old) who were selling pop and chips.  The big boys each got a glass of lemonade and paid $1 cash.  Ten and Forrest did not reciprocate the purchase because they only had $1 total (their profit from the big boys) and the big boys were selling sodas for $1 each and there were two of Ten and Forrest and they didn’t want to share one pop.

Their second customer was Ten’s friend Duncan, who was given a free glass of lemonade and promptly hired as the third wheel.

After the initial big boy rush, sales languished.  Kyle went back to the house to get the team a speaker for music.  Still no customers.  Kyle went back to the house to get the team goldfish crackers.  Still no customers.

A company meeting was held, during which it was determined that goldfish crackers would be added to the menu and sold for the price of $.50 a bag.

Still, no customers.

Kyle went back to the house to get the team some ice cream.  Spirits soared; customers did not.

A memo was circulated by Management to inform the employees that the wagon would double as a trashcan.  On the horizon, a Black Ford 1-50 appeared.

Two neighborhood teens jumped out.

“My dad saw this on Facebook and said we had to come over,” one of the teens told Kyle.  They bought two glasses of lemonade, bringing the day’s total profits to $2.

Newly emboldened, Kyle and the boys made a TikTok.

As you might have guessed, the big boys down the block also struggled with sales, even though they were waving a sign.  Duncan, Director of Marketing, had the idea to pull the team’s own sign out of the ground and begin waving it.  Forrest did the waving, Ten did The Robot.

Naturally, with the sign waving and robot robot-ing, customers began to roll in.  And some of those customers weren’t even related to the salespeople!  Most were, though, like Forrest’s great-grandpa and Forrest’s cousin.

It was during this rush that the team had their best sale: an anonymous benefactor who Venmoed Kyle $10 and told him to give away lemonade to any kids who didn’t have any money.

Giving away lemonade turned out to be harder than they thought because everyone kept tipping them.  During the attempted philanthropy, the most difficult sale rolled up: a dad in a Suburban who wanted three lemonades and two bags of Goldfish.  This prompted an emergency meeting related to accounting principles.  The problem was solved with a 100% tip.

By this point, the kids were hot and had made $5 each and were starting to lose interest in further commerce.  They found a couple of teenagers mowing lawns and handed out some more lemonade.  Then they filled up a giant glass of lemonade and jaywalked across the street to the sheriff’s house.  Forrest gave him the lemonade.  Ten gave him a salute and thanked him for his service to the country.

The team’s last customer was a ‘68 Camaro, who had first stopped at the competition’s stand before rolling down the road to Ten’s.  The occupants were a husband and wife, who gave the boys $2 without any lemonade in exchange.

“We like to cruise around town and give money to lemonade stands,” the wife told Kyle.

Forrest insisted they take a bag of goldfish.

With sales concluded, the team handed the keys over to the Maintenance Staff (Kyle), who packed up the tent, sign, table, chairs, lemonade, glasses, speaker, and goldfish while the boys headed back to the house for a celebratory Happy Hour of more ice cream.  The final assessment was that they had so much fun that they want to do it again this week.

Ten has been a very enthusiastic salute-er of late. The photo above was taken on the 4th of July, and is Ten saluting a roadside firecracker.

This week on North Dakota Today we talked about the team behind Lardy Construction, my Nice People of the Week, as well a whole group of Facebookers who stepped in to make sure Melissa Peterson and Jerry Patnaude’s wedding day was rockin’. (Valley News Live)

Four kids named Asher, Owen, Emmy, and Hunter were made honorary firefighters for their work to prevent a house fire from spreading. (Grand Forks Air Force Base)

The Sweet Treats ice cream truck handed out free ice cream across four North Dakota counties following the recent tornado. (Fargo Forum; Found from “Oops Only Good News”)

Surrey celebrated its Quasquicentennial right before the holiday weekend… (Minot Daily News)

…And Tioga celebrated Tioga Freedom Fest the weekend after. (Williston Herald)

Grand Forks’ Carson Skarperud is on his way to the USGA Amateur Golf Championship in San Francisco. (Grand Forks Herald)