Avocados - Chapter 2
My working life actually started with some major gardener training. If you grew up during the 80’s like I did – then Saturday was for chores. You did not get to go out and play until the house was clean and the weeds were pulled. Pop did not have any boys –so my Sister, Heather, and I were it!The routine was….
Get up
Go knock on doors and give out our Watchtowers
Come home
Pull Weeds
Then when we wanted to make extra money, we went down the street and worked in my Grandpa’s yard. Not that was and IS a BEAST! My grandma is Japanese, and my Grandpa loved to build her out Japanese gardens. When Heather and I wanted to make some extra money, we pulled weeds, bonsaied bushes, sweep, scrubbed floors… EVERYTHING. We would write down our hours in a little tablet and he would pay us by the hour. He would also give us ENORMOUS tips – but he did not pay us unless we earned it.
One time I was saving up for something that I wanted really bad. I called my Grandpa and told him that I wanted to work EIGHT hours to earn my money. He told me to get there at 7am the next morning.
After about FOUR hours in the sun I was dying! I said to him:
“Bumpa (that’s what I call him)… I think I am going to go ahead and quit after this bush – I’m getting pretty Tired.”
“No you’re not! You told me you were giving me eight hours – so you’re giving me eight hours!”
… and there you go. Forever more, I do what I promise, and demand the same from others…
So what does this have to do with Avocados? I’m getting there….
Well, after that I knew FOR SURE I wanted to get out of the gardening game. So, I came up with other ways to make money. As I got older I got better and better at it.
I used to have a carnival in my backyard. I gave rides on my giant teeter totter (a crazy but fun death trap my dad built for us) for 5 cents. You could throw a ball and knock down cans for 10 cents. If you won I would run in my house and grab a toy out of my giant toy box (another death trap my dad built – but a great hiding place when I needed to hide from a good beating!)
It cost 25 cents to get IN my carnival. I would sell twinkies… I made good money and all the neighborhood kids would want to come in!
I also had a whole car wash set up on Saturday afternoons. Instead of going to go play, we would wash cars, inside and out, for 5 bucks! I would get my neighbors to line them all up and I would get them all done. Then we would polish a lady’s brass. She had tons of it!
The point is…. We ALWAYS found ways to make money. But then one day…. I discovered the magic of Avocados.
Every week as part of the chores I had to do, I would pick up all the rotten avocados off the ground from our GINORMOUS avocado tree in the back yard. They would attract those nasty possums. So they had to go.
Well, one day I went to the grocery store with my mom and saw a price sign on the avocados for $1.25 each! WHAT????? I’m picking up these things off the ground and throwing them away and Vons is selling them for $1.25 each???
I couldn’t get home fast enough! I got my little red wagon, loaded it up with as many avocados as it would hold and started up the street. I sold my avocados for 50 cents each. After a few houses I realized that no one would have change, or they would just buy one. So I switched my pitch to 2 FOR $1.00! or 5 for $2.00! Well, of course everyone was buying them because they were so cheap. I was RICH!!!!! And I was not only getting them for FREE – but I was saving myself from chores that I would have had to do the next day!
That was the beginning for me – I was over slaving away in the garden. I was now figuring out ways to sell stuff that I would either have already, or find for a good deal.
From there I was a professional garage sale thrower. I would figure out ways to make as much money as I could at my garage sale. I plastered my neighborhood with flyers. I offered to pick up items that my neighbors wanted to get rid of – much like the goodwill picks up today with their trucks – except I had my little red wagon. We sold baked goods, lemonade, coffee…. Anything I could to make as much money as possible in those few hours. Heather and I would make a couple hundred bucks in just one morning.
Oh yeah…. We were rich!
And it was just the beginning of my career as a serial worker.