There's a Fire-Sale Going on Here

If you were eight years old, and found yourself short of cash, what do you do??

Simple.

Monetize your room.

Yesterday evening on my way to bed, I noticed some items strewn on the carpet at the entrance of his room. What I figured was dirty clothes, perhaps an errant toy or sock, was in fact trinkets tagged for quick sale. The items were as follows:

7 Crayola crayons – 2 cents

‘The Story of Chanukah’ - $1.00

A framed picture of our misguided entrepreneur, piloting his grandfather’s boat - $6.00

And oddly, a sign that read ‘Closed’

From all this I deduce the following:

1) Crayons are still one of life’s little bargains

2) The Story of Chanukah, while commanding more money than used crayon’s, doesn’t really hold its resale value well

3) While clearly ‘everything has its price’ the photo of he and grandpa at least commanded a reasonable price, which was reassuring.

The boy had this odd fire-sale running upstairs while his parents watched TV. Weary and disappointed with the lack of foot-traffic, he likely shut the store down, placed the ‘Closed’ sign and went to sleep, muttering ‘damn-you recession, damn you to hell’.

By the time I dragged my ass out of bed this morning, the store had been packed up and I had all but forgotten about Ritchie-Rich’s scheme.

On my way up to bed tonight though – same drill, but with some added wares at The Store. I also note he has left an ‘OPEN’ sign up instead. I suppose Zach figured The Store could run itself ‘on the honour system’, much like the country roadside zucchini-stands that have the quaint money tin, yet no attendant. He even left a pencil crayon bag as some sort of quasi cash-register, with instructions to ‘leave money here’.

This evening’s selection is as follows:

1) The Crayons are still available, but he upped the ante to 8 for 2 cents – BARGAIN!

2) A bunch of green stickers for a penny – that seems priced just about right.

3) A bag of marbles for $3.00 – He should have sold the satin bag separately

4) The picture of he & grandpa remains at $6.00 - hold firm buddy, it’ll move.

5) The Chanukah book is (somehow) still available, for just a buck.

I head back downstairs, scoop $1.25 out of the change drawer, and snag the Chanukah book and the Crayola’s (keep the change buddy).

If he tries to sell his stereo, I’m gonna charge him $478 a square foot for the retail space, and shut this sad little scheme down.