Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
July 21, 2005

Kool-Aid Sells Better with a Little Punch

Journal Entry:  June 16, 1978 (age 9)

Two great summer movies opened today.  The first is Grease.  The second is Jaws 2.  So I have a goal to work toward.  I must earn enough money to see both movies.  This will allow me passage on the sacred journey from the bus stop in front of Fitzie’s Bar on Main Street to the Oakdale Mall Cinemas.  Then I will listen to the swirling, orchestral Cinema National theme song and wait for the greasers and shark bait to sing and get eaten.

But how to earn the money?  The country is in a recession, and summer jobs are scarce for teens, let alone 9 year-olds like me.  But this is a hot summer, and everybody likes a nice, refreshing glass of Kool-Aid.  Add in my puppy dog expression as a salesman, and the similarly pleading faces of my 11-year-old brother Dan, and our business partners, Teresa and Tim McKinney, and you have a surefire sales phenomenon.  Or so we thought.

Dan and I live on the busy corner of West End and Highland avenues in Binghamton, so we set up the Kool-Aid stand in our front yard.  I originally suggested that the McKinneys supply the Kool-Aid mix and cups, and Dan and I supply the water.  Despite my argument that the final product was mostly water, the McKinneys rejected this supply structure.  We ended up splitting the cost of materials.  I decided this was OK – I would secure the more lucrative franchising rights once our venture had gone national.

But business for the past several weeks had been slow.  Plenty of people drove by us, and many of them waved to us, but in a way that said, “Look at how hot and miserable those kids are!  Let’s go to the Ramada and take a swim.”  Tensions were running pretty high among the staff.

Things finally flared up yesterday, when Dan and I worked a double shift together.  In a moment of pique, Dan made the preposterous claim that Wonder Woman could beat up Catwoman.  While I was willing to agree that Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter could beat up the aging Eartha Kitt, who played the second Catwoman on Batman, I felt confident that her predecessor, the wily and beguiling Julie Newmar, would make short work of Dan’s beloved Amazon.  Naturally, our disagreement came to blows, and soon we were rolling around our front lawn, pummeling each other.  Tim McKinney thoughtfully provided timely exclamations of “POW!” and “ZAP!”

Two drivers pulled over to break up the pre-teen melee.  They couldn’t bear the sight of two 60-pound redheads engaged in a death match over a pair of future Hollywood Squares.  Once they had us separated and calmed down, both drivers purchased a glass of Kool-Aid.

So today we are staging fights every 20 minutes or so.  Teresa McKinney just gave me a charlie horse and a barrage of noogies.  But it’ll be worth it when John Travolta and Roy Scheider kiss Olivia Newton-John and harpoon a Great White.

© 2005 Tim Mollen

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