When life gives you lemons...

When I was about 15, my father decided I should learn a little bit about business so he proposed that I start a little lemonade stand. This would have been fine if I were a six-year-old girl and I wasn't already shaving. And smoking a half a pack a day.

I pretty much would have done anything besides start a lemonade stand at that point. Wouldn't he rather me do something a little more age appropriate, such as, say drug dealing or pimping? If people saw me with this lemonade stand in my lily white suburb (exurb really), they would have grown suspicious of what the true nature of my business was. Is he fronting some type of gambling ring or selling illegal Dutch porn? Why would this kid who looks like he belongs in college be selling lemonade for 25 cents on the corner of Old Farmstead Road?

And then there was the issue with the cops. No one is going to ask a cute little girl in a yellow sun dress if she has a permit to do this, but I think they might ask me. And while they were at it, they might have frisked me in search of something a little more stimulating than lemons and sugar. Or maybe I want to interact with little children - maybe a little too much? Not that I was a particularly menacing or suspicious looking youth, but I think any police officer worth his salt would be wary of any male between the ages of 10 and 78 selling lemonade on the side of the road.

Suffice to say, I ended up working at a driving range that summer and it was hell, but it didn't raise any eyebrows to see me driving the cart around to collect golf balls, hung over with a cigarette in my mouth.