THOSE SALES PITCHES

In the span of about 90 minutes this afternoon, I ran...indirectly...into 2 sales pitches that caught my attention.

The first was on Mason's and my way to his ballgame. Between our house and the ballfield...is one of those pizza joints that sells cheap pizza for $5. It's one of those places that you can't sit at a table inside to eat...you just drive up, ask them to make the pizza you want and then take it home to eat. But from my perspective...for $5...you get pizza that tastes like $5. So I don't care to go there...or eat any of their pizza.

But the sales pitch I was mentioning...is they, almost daily, have one or two or three guys outside at the streetside...waving signs that advertise...'Pizza for $5'. The guys that wave the signs must get a couple bucks an hour...or all the $5 pizza they can eat...to try to distract the drivers going by in hopes they'll pull in and buy a few to take home for supper. I assume it's effective advertising...but it...and their product...is of no interest to me.

The second sales pitch came on our way home from the game. We drove home a different way than the way we took to get there...and we passed near a house where a little girl was sitting on the corner selling her lemonade. 'Lemonade...25 cents!'...she yelled loudly as she held up her little sign as I and several other cars passed by.

None of us stopped for lemonade!

Then...as I continued to drive home...I began to giggle as I was reminded of a Flip Wilson or Bill Cosby skit from years and years and years ago. I don't recall for sure which of the two it was...but the story was funny to me then...and still made me giggle this afternoon.

The gist of the story was this: Flip was selling lemonade from his lemonade stand when he was a little boy. His sign said...'ALL THE LEMONADE YOU CAN DRINK 10 CENTS'. Well...a fellow stopped by on a hot day and he was thirsty and he said to Flip...'that sounds good. I'll have a glass of your lemonade. Here's 10 cents'.

So Flip takes the mans 10 cents and gives him a glass of lemonade. The man was thirsty and drank it down and found it to be delicious. He decided he'd like another glass...and since the sign said 'all you can drink for 10 cents'...he handed his glass back to Flip and said, 'that was real good. I'll have another glass'.

Flip said, 'that'll be 10 cents'.

The man said, 'but your sign says all you can drink for 10 cents'.

Flip says, 'you had one glass...and that's all you can drink for 10 cents' !

Hearing that little girl yell 'lemonade...25 cents'...took me back to an older time.

I giggled.


Dan