When Nancy Leson told me about the time her young son Nate opened a little stand in front of their house selling vegetables from their backyard, I asked, "So as the tenant sharecropper on your land, did he hand over half the money he made?" He did not.
Nance explained, "I thought of it as a way of ensuring that when I'm in my dotage he'll take care of me." I wished her the best of luck with that. I've yet to see any lemonade on offer where I live, but the neighborhood kids do sometimes set up a pirated DVD and replica Rolex stand.
When it comes to young entrepreneurs, Nancy pursues a business-friendly policy – even though she freely admits "The lemonade's the worst part of it. Often it's diluted, it's made with powdered lemonade."
She just buys it to make the kid's day. And because, as the mother of an one-time lemonade stand kid, she feels guilty for passing them by. You think those kids don't know how to play the guilt card?
And speaking of guilt, Nance took this picture at her neighborhood Trader Joe's. I thought the euphemism "distraction" was a nice touch.
"When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye." – Cathy Guisewite
