6 baht a cup

The other day Eliot scrounged up an old Kool aid packet I had bought in a moment of homesicknesses but never bothered to make. Do you know how much sugar goes into Kool Aid? Well, I don't because the packet was all in Thai. E had been on me for a few days to make it for her when finally I said, "Hey, why don't you make it and get some friends to set up a lemonade stand?"

Blank stare.

I quickly explained the concept of a lemonade stand. Dollar signs (or rather baht signs) in her eyes, she set to work; dumping buckets of sugar into the water (I presume that's what it calls for), making a sign advertising, "6 baht for koleade" and scouring the neighborhood looking for similarly entrepreneurial kids.

As I was looking around the house for some kind of table I was willing to haul outside, she came running in asking what she could use for a cart. I was still processing what she was asking when she came racing out of the playroom with a push cart of Violet's announcing, "This is a perfect!" I then realized she has never seen an actual lemonade stand.

Instead, this is what she has grown up with:

I saluted her ingenuity and helped her out the door with her lemonade cart. 

Her money making scheme was slightly hindered by her customers being children and therefore lacking money. Apparently, the Thai people on our street think 6 baht is a bit of a rip off for whatever weird red drink those obnoxious kids were trying to sell them, besides, they saw the french bull dog drinking out of the pitcher. Nice try. 

Other than dogs, she also failed to account for toddlers when picking a cart. We had to make a few batches, each a bit more watery than the last. 

 Mainly she and her cohorts drank it all together. Isn't that normally what happens in a lemonade stand? I wouldn't know. I dealt strictly in rocks as a child.

From hearing about Rocky's childhood, I just assume he had a constant lemonade stand set up in front of his home. According to him, he paid for his space camp in Russia selling snow cones. One time he sold a guy two cups of lemonade for $10 each. Because of that guy, he now refuses to drive by a lemonade stand without stopping and overpaying for whatever lukewarm, germ infested concoction they're selling. Despite my effort to distract him every time I see a stand, we spend a good $7 in dimes every summer on lemonade stands. Jokes on us.

In case you were wondering, no one ever bought any rocks. I blame my steep street. Or supply and demand.

Eliot recently earned a much needed new bike and asked me if she could attach a box to the back so she could drive around and sell stuff to people.

I tied on 100 boxes and sent her on her way.

I guess this is what happens when you grow up in Bangkok.