Trying to Take Over the World

bylrharting

98 followers

12 years ago

Quick note about the title to this one, my fiance says this to me all the time when I tell him about my master plans all of which involve some way for me to make a buck. Nothing ever gets put in motion, however; but the wheels are always turning.

This makes me think of a specific indecent in middle school that I haven't thought about in YEARS. I feel like it completely reflects my mindset. Anyway, when I was in middle school, the administration had decided that it would be okay for the students to have chewing. gum. This change was a BIG deal since before the rule had been no food or drink in class under any circumstances. I remember times when kids would get called out in class because they had cough drops. The teachers would always let you have those, but you had to inform them before class that you had them.

I would always ask my mom to buy me gum when I was with her shopping for groceries. She would always get me something in one of those huge value packs so I always had gum at school. A lot of times the other kids would ask me for a piece and I would give it to them. I don't remember how and I don't remember why but for some reason I got the idea to start charging people a nominal fee per stick of gum; I think it was only about 10 cents. Thinking back on this now, I think it's funny that I was about 11 or 12 years old at the time.

I started making enough money off this that I was able to afford the gum that my mother wouldn't buy. I went to the store and bought Bubblicious and Bubble Yum. I started offering variety to my customers. So I had some Juicy Fruit or Big Red or some other small stick of gum for 10 cents and then I offered the Bubblicuous for 25 cents a piece. I remember I always had some change in my pocket when they turned on the vending machine after school. I don't remember why I stopped, I never got in trouble because I didn't do it in class and I wasn't a trouble maker.

I hope everyone enjoys this story and I used to do stuff like this all the time when I was a kid (nothing else worked as well). Does anyone else have a childhood story like this to share?