An Easy Mark
As I've documented in this blog before, Vika is always looking for a way to make a quick buck. If she can earn the money without having to do chores around the house, even better! Usually her plans involve creating some piece of "art" and then trying to sell it to people on the street. This worries me a bit because it brings to mind a future in which my daughter runs a make-shift booth selling tie-dye t-shirts to neo-hippies on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Not exactly ideal.
During Spring Break, Vika made another entrepreneurial attempt. She crumbled wads of paper into slightly oblong-shaped balls and then colored them with crayons to make them look like decorated Easter Eggs. I'm not going to lie to you and say they were lovely. They were actually quite bad, and even Vika began to realize this as she was going over pricing with me. "Mama, do you think I could sell one of these for $5? Or maybe 50 cents?" I suggested that it might be best for her to simply give them to the family as Easter gifts, free of charge. She considered this for a moment, and then her face brightened as she said, "I know! I'll sell them to Joe-Monkey (my brother)! He'll fall for it! He always buys my stuff!"
Poor Joe... He's bought beaded items, drawings and coloring pages from Vika in the past, usually for 50 cents or $1 each, and now he's cast himself as an easy mark for all of her future moneymaking schemes. Fortunately, Vika forgot to bring the paper "eggs" with her to mom's on Easter, so Joe was not parted from any of his money that day. I can’t wait to see what she tries to sell him during our next family get-together!
During Spring Break, Vika made another entrepreneurial attempt. She crumbled wads of paper into slightly oblong-shaped balls and then colored them with crayons to make them look like decorated Easter Eggs. I'm not going to lie to you and say they were lovely. They were actually quite bad, and even Vika began to realize this as she was going over pricing with me. "Mama, do you think I could sell one of these for $5? Or maybe 50 cents?" I suggested that it might be best for her to simply give them to the family as Easter gifts, free of charge. She considered this for a moment, and then her face brightened as she said, "I know! I'll sell them to Joe-Monkey (my brother)! He'll fall for it! He always buys my stuff!"
Poor Joe... He's bought beaded items, drawings and coloring pages from Vika in the past, usually for 50 cents or $1 each, and now he's cast himself as an easy mark for all of her future moneymaking schemes. Fortunately, Vika forgot to bring the paper "eggs" with her to mom's on Easter, so Joe was not parted from any of his money that day. I can’t wait to see what she tries to sell him during our next family get-together!
I see great things in store for that one.
That is way too funny! But my nieces and nephews do the same thing to me and I buy, buy, buy.
oh man!
We sold rocks one year. Rocks. They were competitively priced and marketed as paperweights...but they were rocks.
We were thrilled with a neighbor bought the wagonload for $5.
When I was 8 or 9, my mom taught me to cross-stitch and I made simple little cross-stitch Christmas ornaments to sell. Maybe Vika can get into more established holiday handicrafts!