Our village had a diner where I grew up.
The owner dipped ice-cream cones behind the bar. One scoop for 5¢. Two scoops for 10¢, and if you were really rich and feeling like a pig, three scoops set you back a whopping 15¢.
The owner had a soft spot for my little brother and me, so he'd sneak us two scoops for a nickel, provided the the little woman cooking in the kitchen didn't find out. But when she did, she yelled so the whole restaurant could hear.
"Don't you give those kids two scoops! We'll go broke doing that! Five cents is one scoop!"
He'd be busted.
The bar counter had a rack that held small bags of peanuts that sold for five cents each. It took a lot of penny-saving to buy one bag, so that's what we did.
One day, the owner had a vending machine parked on the counter, about four feet from the peanut rack. He said a man put it there, when I asked him where it came from.
These peanuts cost only one penny. I figured we'd only get about two peanuts for a penny, so we stayed away from that contraption.
The beauty of the machine though, all red paint and shiny metal, eventually wore us down that summer, so when we found a penny on the gravel parking lot on one of our meandering-through-the-village days, we took the treasure and went inside the diner.
The peanut machine was magical. Put a penny in the slot, turn the handle, lift the metal flap, and out would come the peanuts. We tried it. Tons of peanuts tumbled out of the shoot! We whooped with joy.
"Count them! Count them!" I yelled to my brother.
"Now I'll count the peanuts in one of those bags," I said. "We'll see which one has more peanuts, okay?"
We couldn't believe it! The bags held about one third the number of peanuts that had spilled out onto the counter from the peanut machine.
I whispered to my brother, "Whoever sells the peanuts in this machine is stupid. He'll never get rich."
We told no one of our clever secret. If we did, I knew the peanut man would charge more for them if he found out how dumb he was, selling so many peanuts for only a penny.
From then on, every time we found a penny, my brother and I would run to the diner and raid the peanut machine, and giggle ourselves silly over how clever we were to outsmart the peanut man.
You'd have thought we'd have grown up to be lawyers, being that smart, but we didn't.
Actually, I ended up marrying the peanut man in Toronto, and died laughing when I discovered who he was. He wasn't stupid after all. He was a smart businessman, who made his money dealing in peanuts, pennies, nickles, and dimes.
In gigantic quantities, I might add.
The owner dipped ice-cream cones behind the bar. One scoop for 5¢. Two scoops for 10¢, and if you were really rich and feeling like a pig, three scoops set you back a whopping 15¢.
The owner had a soft spot for my little brother and me, so he'd sneak us two scoops for a nickel, provided the the little woman cooking in the kitchen didn't find out. But when she did, she yelled so the whole restaurant could hear.
"Don't you give those kids two scoops! We'll go broke doing that! Five cents is one scoop!"
He'd be busted.
The bar counter had a rack that held small bags of peanuts that sold for five cents each. It took a lot of penny-saving to buy one bag, so that's what we did.
One day, the owner had a vending machine parked on the counter, about four feet from the peanut rack. He said a man put it there, when I asked him where it came from.
These peanuts cost only one penny. I figured we'd only get about two peanuts for a penny, so we stayed away from that contraption.
The beauty of the machine though, all red paint and shiny metal, eventually wore us down that summer, so when we found a penny on the gravel parking lot on one of our meandering-through-the-village days, we took the treasure and went inside the diner.
The peanut machine was magical. Put a penny in the slot, turn the handle, lift the metal flap, and out would come the peanuts. We tried it. Tons of peanuts tumbled out of the shoot! We whooped with joy.
"Count them! Count them!" I yelled to my brother.
"Now I'll count the peanuts in one of those bags," I said. "We'll see which one has more peanuts, okay?"
We couldn't believe it! The bags held about one third the number of peanuts that had spilled out onto the counter from the peanut machine.
I whispered to my brother, "Whoever sells the peanuts in this machine is stupid. He'll never get rich."
We told no one of our clever secret. If we did, I knew the peanut man would charge more for them if he found out how dumb he was, selling so many peanuts for only a penny.
From then on, every time we found a penny, my brother and I would run to the diner and raid the peanut machine, and giggle ourselves silly over how clever we were to outsmart the peanut man.
You'd have thought we'd have grown up to be lawyers, being that smart, but we didn't.
Actually, I ended up marrying the peanut man in Toronto, and died laughing when I discovered who he was. He wasn't stupid after all. He was a smart businessman, who made his money dealing in peanuts, pennies, nickles, and dimes.
In gigantic quantities, I might add.
Too cute! That’s some good economic skills at such a young age! :)
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