Thursday, February 07, 2008

So Crazy It Just Might Work

I can’t decide if I should be proud or appalled.

Lucas (13 and in 8th grade) has come up with a rather sure fire money making plan.

He noticed that his junior high school sells 20 oz. bottles of Coke products out of vending machines for $1.25. This is of course, highway robbery and a travesty of epic proportions.

But our man Lucas sees this as an opportunity to muscle in on the market.

He’s taken to smuggling cans of soda in his backpack to school and storing them in his locker and backpack until lunchtime. At which point he hangs out by the vending machines, selling his wares and undercutting the vending machine price rather significantly.

And he doesn’t just sell normal sodas. He’s branched out into those goofy “energy” drinks that the kids love so much. He sells those for a much higher profit margin.

Seriously, he’s worked it all out on a little piece of graph paper. He knows exactly how much he’ll make on each case he can move. Market analysis and stuff.

I’m all for it, of course.

Except.

He has to sneak all this stuff around and hide it in his locker and treat it like it’s contraband. Because certainly the school would frown upon this sort of activity. I’m also pretty sure that the school gets a cut from Coca-Cola in exchange for exclusivity on campus. So he could get into trouble, which would be sad for our normally well-behaved little guy.

And I’m very much of two minds about pointing out to him that he could get even more inventory to school if he squirreled away cans in his sax case. But his cute blue eye lit up when I told him that, so it’s hard to feel too bad about it.

And I say things to him like, “Don’t drink that Mountain Dew! Dude! You don’t get high on your own supply!”

As a nominally responsible father figure, I’m just not sure how comfortable I feel promoting all this. I’m essentially telling him it’s OK to get around the rules, even if the rules are dumb. And I’m sure that at some point he’ll see my rules (such as they are) are “totally dumb” and feel like he can avoid those as well.

Plus, we’ve bankrolled his initial inventory and he’s being evasive about when he’s paying us back.

“Yeah, I’ll get you that money soon. Real Soon Now. I promise. I just have to move some more product tomorrow.”

If I start seeing phone calls to Bogata, Colombia on our phone bill, that’s when I’ll start to get really worried.

1. that’s a tough one. but damn ingenuous!!!

   Posted by Aimee Greeblemonkey  on  02/07/08  at  12:11 PM

2. he might be too smart for his own good.

   I keep expecting a call from the school, “Mr. Deal, we have your son here and we need to have a talk about his little business venture.”

   Posted by jon  on  02/07/08  at  12:36 PM

3. This is hilarious. 

   And yes: the school definitely gets a cut, which I think is totally criminal.

   Posted by Novembrance  on  02/07/08  at  01:31 PM

4. What he’s doing is wrong.  Period.

   Posted by trinity67  on  02/07/08  at  04:19 PM

5. Lucas having to keep his capitalist aspirations sub-rosa is, of course, another example of the man and the system keeping people down…

   Posted by michael  on  02/07/08  at  05:34 PM

6. Schools make scads of money on vending.

   I had to laugh at this, although I realize that it is a gray area that could definitely nip him in the heiny.

   Posted by Loralee  on  02/07/08  at  06:11 PM

7. He is not “WRONG,” he is inventive.  And if there’s one thing I have learned in my life it is how to crush my own innovation with the terror that it might not be “the right thing.”

   Invention is best nurtured, not told that it is wrong.

   Posted by largeair!!  on  02/07/08  at  07:59 PM

8. Lucas is quite the entrepreneur.

   And, you’re tagged.

   http://norasbloggedyblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/7-random-andor-weird-things-about-me.html

   Posted by Nora  on  02/08/08  at  12:12 AM

9. I once had a student (senior in hs) that developed and sold an underground T-shirt that had all kinds of drug references on it.  Of course they were banned by the school, but he also discovered a passion for marketing that he planned to pursue at college.  I hope he uses his powers only for good.

   Lucas is both brilliant and breaking school rules.  Does his thrill come from the sales or the danger?  If the former, is there a way to make it legal? Talk to the principal, sell when the vending machine is off, etc? 

   If it’s the latter...hmm.  Here’s quite an opportunity for a “nominally responsible” dad!  Good luck!

   Also to add to my already excessive comment:

   Invention is great, but where do we draw the line of encouraging it?  Do we respect the law when we invent, or invent and disregard the law/rules completely?

   Schools do get lots of money from Coke and Pepsi - which goes to pay for things like books, uniforms, teacher education...not more soda.  It’s counted as part of their budget, not as extra pocketchange for the bigwigs. At least, I hope not.:)

   Okay, I’m done!  Personally, I hope Lucas makes scads of cash, pays back his folks, and manages not to get suspended.:)

   Posted by Lyz  on  02/08/08  at  11:16 AM

10. I think if he gets caught, he’ll stop and nothing more will done about it. I seriously doubt he’d get suspended. He’s a good kid and not a rebellious soul, really. I’ll look into the actual school rules about “entrepreneurial” activities a little more.

    It might all blow over very soon anyway. He’ll get tired of trying to stuff a 12 pack of Mountain Dew into his backpack.

    He’s pretty short and weak, after all. Plus kind of funny looking, too.

    (yes, that last bit is for you Lucas… I know you are reading :-])

    Posted by jon  on  02/08/08  at  11:29 AM

11. I am not that short and I am not that weak. And you shouldn’t even talk about funny looking ‘cuz in that department you take the cake, eat it, and still have room for more.

    Posted by Lucas  on  02/08/08  at  05:14 PM

12. Your boy is quite sassy.

    The question I have is, don’t the other kids want a cold beverage?  I think Lucas needs to look into installing a cooler in his locker.  Maybe throw an ice pack in his sax case.

    Posted by imaginary sarah  on  02/15/08  at  12:00 AM

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Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

 

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