Author Archives: tim

This past Thursday, I went out for a run. On the way home, I passed a lemonade stand. There was a huge team out there — at least five kids, maybe more. They had a sign that said “Lemonade $4.”

I told you these kids were relentless. Four dollars!? That’s insane.

As I was approaching, I heard them shouting to anyone who would listen, “Lemonade and Rice Krispie treats!” As I went running by, they targeted me with their pitch. All five of them.

“Lemonade!”

“Lemonade and Rice Krispie treats!”

“Lemonade!”

“Money goes to the tsunami victims!”

I turned my head at this last one. I thought, Wait, what? Are you serious?

I shouted, “I don’t have money. I’ll come back.”

They responded, “Okay!”

When I got home, I told Eileen about it. We leashed up the dog, grabbed 8 dollars (!) and walked down Kendall Ave. to the stand, which was about 7 blocks from our house. When we got to the corner of Kendall and Allen, about 3 blocks from our house, we were met by 4 kids who really wanted to pet Tember. We smiled as they gushed over her and then they said, “we have a lemonade stand over there.” Relentless, I tell you.

We let Tember off the leash and she walked/jogged with the kids until we called her back. We would then allow her to run up to the kids, who were a good 30 yards ahead of us. When we finally arrived at the stand, one of the boys was bragging about how cheap the lemonade powder mix was. I asked how much the lemonade was.

“Twenty five cents.”

And the rice krispie treats?

“Fifty cents.”

I checked the sign. It still said $4. I said, “Okay, we’ll take two lemonades and two rice krispie treats.” They poured our drinks while a little girl asked if Tember would bite. Eileen said, “no, but sometimes she licks people.”

The little girl giggled and said, “yeah, she just licked me.”

I gave the “cashier” two dollars. She said thanks. I waited. By my calculations, I had 50 cents coming.

A little boy whispered, “Did they pay us?”

The cashier showed no signs of knowing that she owed us 50 cents. On the one hand, you want to teach a lesson in good business — i.e. don’t cheat people out of their money. On the other hand, you’re a jackass to demand 50 cents from some kids who are donating the money to the tsunami victims.

We left. They all said bye to Tember.

You can see my bald spot even from 200 yards away.

Last week, my friend Gina came to town with her husband Frank. It was great to see them both. Frank is a champion storyteller. He teaches high school outside of Portland, and he runs an extracurricular social studies team that competes at things like geography bees. They made it to nationals a couple years ago and placed sixth.

One of the kids on the team actually failed Frank’s class. I guess he’s not all that interested in school, but he’s great in competitions because he knows any flag you show him. The superintendant of the district came in to talk with the successful team and asked this kid what he thought of the Israel/Palestine conflict. He said, “huh?” Some other kid interrupted and said, “he just does flags.”

Later, Frank was telling us about how he goes to the grocery store every day. I have that tendency too. But Frank is a pretty outgoing guy, and he talks to everyone. Apparently, one of the clerks gave him the employee discount and actually thought he worked there. He’d go through the line and she’d say things like, “are you working tomorrow?”

In the second half of last week, Eileen and I went up to Door County to camp with her parents in Peninsula State Park. Eileen’s mom has cousins in Green Bay who came up a few times to sit around the campfire. The Blaney’s. They’re Irish. They can tell stories.

In Irish families, you tell a good one and it will probably get recycled later; tell a bad one and you might get ridiculed. At some sort of family gathering, the Blaney’s were sitting around telling stories and someone told one that kinda fizzled out. Someone else, we’ll call him John, said, “That’s not how you end a story!” He proceeded to recount an experience with a patient of his who had come in for a blood transfusion or a plasma donation or something. The guy was blind, but on the medical history, it didn’t mention anything about his being blind. John asked the man about it, and the guy explained that in a psychotic episode, he had gouged out both his eyes! “Now that’s how you end a story!”