Paul Filek: Blog Video Series

Warning!! Lemonade scam!

I was enjoying my day off this past Sunday in Victoria.  Life couldn’t have been better. I was hanging out with one of my longest and oldest best friends Andrew Rose. The sun was shinning and the day was young so we decided to take a cruise downtown to grab ourselves a nice refreshing cold beverage… It was on this drive downtown that has forever changed my life and my attitude. I got scammed!

Taking a short cut into town I drove down a few residential streets.  There on the corner of one of these streets was a young fellow sitting patiently at the end of his driveway with a lemonade stand.  I slowly drove past and a few short seconds later decided I was going to pull over and support this kid. I had never before in my life stopped at a lemonade stand.  If you think about it there are so many things that could go wrong with this type of fly by day business.  Many questions ran through my brain as I walked back up the street closer to this stand.   Is the lemonade cold? Is it fresh? Did the young fellow was his hands at any point in the past two days? Does he have a business license for this? Does he claim this on his taxes? Am I able to keep the glass, or is it one that he has to keep and wash? And if so does he wash these glasses? How much would he charge me for a glass and would his price be at market value? So many thoughts ran through my head on that walk, but the one thought that never crossed my mind was that this kid was going to rip me off.

“I’m sorry we’re closed at the moment... all out of lemonade.” The cute little kid tells me.  There he was on a hot summer day sitting in his baseball uniform at a little table with a few glasses and a jug of lemonade.  We asked if he was trying to raise money for his baseball team and he politely replied that it was not for any charity or any other cause other than for himself.  This was his way to earn a little extra cash.  I really respected this as many people lack the drive or desire to achieve anything in life.  Many people these days just expect things to happen for him.  So I told him I was bummed out I couldn’t have lemonade but that I still wanted to contribute to his success. He looked at me confused as I pulled out some change from my pocket and gave him $2.25.  Then Andrew followed suite and put another $2 on his table.  We thanked him for trying and he thanked us back with a huge smile. We started heading back to my car and even though we had not gotten what we had set out for I think we both felt pretty good about possibly helping make a little kids’ day.

“You got to be f@*$J7ng kidding me” I holler at Andrew as I look in my rear view mirror.  We hardly had enough time to sit in our seats and put on our seatbelts before I noticed a group of three people walking to the lemonade stand that we had just been informed was out of lemonade.  Initially I felt bad that these poor people were about to embark on the same unsuccessful journey Andrew and I had just embarked on, but these peoples journey would definitely end up differently than ours.  This cute little kid in the baseball uniform suddenly didn’t seem that cute to me.   Suddenly all I could picture was the making of a future jail bird.  A con artist, a scammer, a person preying on old people for money.  There Right before my very own eyes 30 feet away I watched him pour three big glasses of lemonade from the same jug he only moments earlier told me was empty.  I’d been had!

BOOM*** I smacked the little bastard right in the face! Took all his money and drank the last of his lemonade.  JUST KIDDING! I drove away completely baffled that this kid totally took my money from me and lied to me about being “sold out.”  But I also have laughed and smiled about it now for two day straight.  I think I'm the world’s first person to get ripped off at a lemonade stand... moral of the story? I’m not sure, but I tell you one thing... next time im just driving straight to 7-11!

Have a great week!! See you soon

Paul