Always bring a 'Pet' with you, when you sell door to door.
In grammer school, and jr. High, my best friend and I earned money by selling stuff door to door. The 'stuff' was peaches, apricots and almonds from the trees in our back yards. We would pick ripe fruit, make sure that there were no worms, and wash the fruit, and then put it into our wagon, and go door to door selling them. The peaches and apricots went fast, but the almonds were harder to sell, since the subdivision was built in what was an almond orchard, so most houses had an almond tree. One time, we cracked open the almonds, and placed the meat in baggies, and they sold a little faster, but there were still baggies left in the wagon. We pondered what to do, and my mind came up with an easy solution...
...LET'S BLANCH THEM!!!...
So, the next week, we were sitting on the back porch, holding nutcrackers, and looking at the two large baskets that were full of almonds. Nancy's little sister, Mollie, was sitting a bit away, also holding a nutcracker, and smiling. Usually, we kept her out of our commerce, she could be a pest...and we just wanted to split the proceeds in half. But, there was a LOT of work to be done. So we said. "Come over, Mollie, and help." She asked, "If I help you prepare, and sell them, how much of a share do I get?" I thought, and figured that she didn't understand math very well, and said..."You will get 10%." She laughed, and said, "If I do as much work as you do, I should get a THIRD!" Nancy and I looked at each other, and said, "OK, if you stay with us, and do as much work as we do, you will get a third." She sat down, and with her help, we got the nuts shelled.
Then came the hard work of blanching them. We would boil a batch in water, and then dump them into a colander, and start boiling a new batch, and peeled the skins off the boiled ones. We then laid them out on cookie trays, salted them, and roasted them. We then bagged them, and had a LOT of baggies. Mollie had been working right beside us all of the time.
The three of us then went out to sell them, and we came up with a use for Mollie. She carried a bag, and a spoon, and when we made our sales pitch, we said that they could taste one, if they wanted, If they did, Mollie would scoop out an almond with the spoon, and drop the nut into the customers hand...beaming with delight as she did so, saying, "I helped make these."
We sold them all, very quickly, people would buy three or four bags at a time. We brought the wagon back, and Mollie carefully watched as we stacked the coins into three equal shares. There were two dimes left, we gave Mollie one, and I took the dime and gave Nancy a nickel.
We figured that Mollie had really helped us sell the almonds, the customers had all smiled back at Mollie...they just wanted to help this little girl.
It is sad how times have changed, especially the problem with drugs. I wouldn't let my young children sell door to door, and I don't buy when a child shows up at my door. Or, if I do, out of a sense of compassion, I just throw the fruit away. I mean, police officers are getting poisoned when they touch an object that has fentanyl on it. And there is so much fentanyl out there. Here, in the Bay Area, they caught two illegal aliens who were carrying enough fentanyl to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Our 'wise' DA set bail at $15,000 each...they handed over $1,500 each, and both were let out, and given citations ordering them to appear in August. Gee, I am SURE that when their case is called, they will stand and walk to the tables with their attorneys.
