Thorns for sale

by Susan Anderson
Wednesday, January 2, 2008 12:18 PM MST

Things were a little giddy in the elementary schools during the last week before Christmas vacation. That may be the only explanation for one of the oddest entrepreneurial schemes I’ve seen.

A 9-year-old boy at my daughter’s school sold enough noodles to his teachers to make a pocketful of change. Noodles -- just what everyone needs to have delivered from the questionable cleanliness of a little boy’s hand.

I know about this because I encountered the art teacher looking at the cooked, limp noodle she bought for a quarter and shaking her head. There’s no doubt that she’s a good sport n- the seller just looked so hopeful, she said.

Business lessons

It made me remember one of the most ridiculous things I did as a child, which was to sell roses from our garden to our neighbors, and then to offer the thorns I had carefully removed for sale too.

Who knows why I thought someone would want the thorns. But our kindly neighbor, Mrs. Taylor, bought my grimy handful of them.

Before I laugh too hard at myself and the noodle boy, I need to remember how we viewed our nephew Django as a teenager. He collected comic books that he found in various places around town. He would tell us that a certain comic book was listed by collectors as being worth $100.

My husband laughed at him and said, “It’s only worth that if someone pays you $100.”

He offered $3.50, which was declined.

This same husband rather strictly forced our daughter and her friend to deduct and hand over the cost of the brownie mix from the cash they got at their brownie and lemonade stand. I’m surprised he didn’t make them estimate the labor costs from parents having to supervise the effort, too.

Still, he does raise kids with good sense about money.

Bacon air freshener

Django went on to be a great success buying and selling items that people over 30 view with skepticism, though he is now over 30 himself. From his basement comic book business, he has moved on to own a downtown store in Bellingham, Wash., operate several lucrative Web sites and make enough money from the whole operation to buy a nice house for his family.

He does all this by selling things like glow-in-the-dark squid shirts. And there’s Proud Kitty shirt, with a picture of a cat “that’s proud as punch over its freshly killed bird.” What a lovely present for the child on your list. Zombies appear to be good sellers too. My favorites are the bacon air freshener and bacon wrapping paper.

Ninjas, pirates and politics dominate this online and actual store. His merchandise doesn’t include thorns or noodles, but in the business world of young entrepreneurs, he could probably sell those at a profit too.

Anybody want a paperclip necklace?

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