The other day in group chat, I had a long-dormant memory unlocked when the subject of Girl Scout Cookie sales came up, and then Navanny shared with us that he funded his high school trip to NY by selling $1500 worth of full-sized candy bars.

It was at this moment that pea-brain sprung to life and began churning. Now, I don’t remember exact details and I think I actually gave false info to group chat when I was first regaling them with my triggered memory, but when I was in 1oth grade, I had lofty entrepreneurial aspirations and when a building down the street went up for sale, my immediate thought as a 15-year-old high school student was to buy it and turn it into a cafe.

I told group chat that it was a pizza place that had closed and went up for sale, but now that I’m thinking of this, it can’t be true because I’m pretty sure that pizza place didn’t close until much later, so it must have been something attached to it, or next to it. I think it’s a salon now, actually.

ANYWAY-V, all I remember next is finding a local candy shop that had agreed to give (???) me a bunch of chocolate roses for me to sell as a fundraiser. GOD ONLY KNOWS WHAT I TOLD THESE PEOPLE I WAS RAISING MONEY FOR.

So many questions.

Like, did I just cold call these people? Or were they advertising that their edible wares were available for fundraisers? How did I get them? Did Lisa drive me to pick it up?? I vaguely remember this being on the South Side and, being “edgy kids,” Lisa and I did hang out there quite often so maybe I saw a sign in their window?!

But still, did they just GIVE THIS TO ME?

Hilarious also that I thought, thanks to my slippery grasp* on the American dollar, that I would be able to sell like 100 pieces of chocolate and then suddenly have enough money to buy/rent a commercial building.

*(Henry wants to point out that my grasp is still just as lubricated in the present day.)

Some other spotty pieces to this story include me getting “in trouble” for soliciting my non-school sanctioned fundraising wares on school grounds. I feel like my friend Shawn Steele bought one for sure because he always did what I told him, and maybe my other friend V who did not grow up to become a member of BTS, sorry. But other than that, who knows who was buying these from me. Apparently, not enough people because the other spotty bits coming back to me involve the candy place being like HELLO KNOCK KNOCK OUR CUT IS WHERE? and my Pappap having to pay them the difference.

You would think that this would be the part of the story where I got grounded or had a “value of the dollar” lesson, but no. I never suffered the consequences back then and just went back to my old tried-and-true: inflating the cost of school lunch and then only buying a Zebra Cake and iced tea, and pocketing the rest of my Pappap’s change.

(When I told Henry this, he was like, “Do you really think your Pappap thought school lunch was that much money and wasn’t, you know, just GIVING YOU the extra money??” But I mean, when he puts it like that, it makes me look less lucrative and savvy.)

Obviously I never opened my own cafe at the tender age of 15 but I will tell you that that area is still, to this day, severely lacking in cafes!!! There is a Starbucks, a Coffee Tree Roasters, and several Dunkins. No Erin-branded cafes. I probably spent all that money on CDs, lol.

What would I even have called my cafe, back then, I wonder? In 10th grade, I was super into gangsta rap and Bone Thugs n Harmony. Mo’ Murda, Mo Mocha? Puttin’ the CAP in Cappucino? Cafe Crossroads?

Ugh, I don’t have the energy for this.

 

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