#11 - Lemonade
Lemonade has got to be just about the most thirst-quenching drink a dehydrated traveler could be lucky enough to come upon. It's wet. It's cold. And it has just the tang and citric bite to clean out the cotton and tingle the tonsils. The color of arctic ice, dressed up with a sprig of mint, it's one of the most gladdening sights a truly parched person can behold.
This time of year lemonade is often found on the side of the road, perched in colorful coolers on top of old wooden crates or an old door laid across a couple of saw horses. Crude signs, yellow with red letters crying LEMONADE! or other similar-sounding words, alert the thirsty motorist that here might be just the thing for his problem.
Usually, behind the coolers, are stationed two or three young capitalists in shorts and sneakers along with their pink-tongued guard dog. And, as they noisily arrange and rearrange their paper cups and check the coins in their cash cup, they hail the passing traffic with a variety of cries that have the general effect of shaking the driver out of his daze just as he whizzes past.
The price of this stuff is variable, and it is in ways a direct function of what the traffic will bear. I've seen it run from 5 cents a cup to 50 cents. From many years of guzzling ade, I have reached the conclusion it is best to buy early or late in the day, because that is when the price is lowest. The reasoning behind this hinges on the youthful vendors' up-and-down pricing strategy. They start the day feeling a little humble and self-conscious, and their 15 cent price reflects this. Then, as discussion of their worldly needs becomes more and more animated, they realize that if they double the price (or even triple it) they'll make a lot more money. So they make an executive decision and double it around high noon.
But their greed gets the best of them.
Rumor spreads up and down the highway that these kids are selling an awfully high- priced product, and besides, there are ants floating in the cups. Suspicion abounds that some of the cups have been recycled, lipstick stains and all, and the lemonade tastes a bit watered down.
The motorized consumer is not stupid. He keeps whizzing by for most of the day. By late afternoon, the lemonade merchants are reduced to a desperate state of mind by cash flow problems, dwindling stock (which they've drunk up themselves), internal strife and sheer boredom. So they chop prices in a last-ditch effort to not lose their shirts.
The consumer, as I said, is not stupid. Out of nowhere he comes, screeching to a halt in front of the lemonade stand. The vendors are beside themselves. Their wildest dream has come true. Yet, in the ensuing confusion of spilled cups, remembering when or when not to hold the mint and screwing up royally in the treasury department, a bold decision is made to just give the stuff away. Anything to lighten the load for the trip home.
Five dollars seems like a pretty good day's take, split three ways. Besides, Mom's calling them to supper.