I feel like I'm skipping over Winter sports by writing this post, but Little League Baseball does not wait for Spring. Even though the season doesn't start for a few months, this Saturday was sign up day which means Elijah got his box of World's Finest Chocolates & raffle tickets to sell. If it were me, if I had to sell that chocolate, I would procrastinate to the last minute. In fact, I was that elementary kid, many, many years ago only I sold Girl Scout cookies and calendars (back when Girl Scouts sold calendars). And unlike today where the new way of selling anything is for the parent to email their friends and send links to the product, we actually had to go door to door to door to door to door. Some of my girl scout friends had parents who would take their cookie sheet to work with them. I was a bit unfortunate. My dad could do that but my mom worked at the Girl Scout Council where every woman there could grab a free box of thin mints at their whim. There was no way I was selling Ho-Downs and Scot Tees there (those are both old cookies that aren't sold anymore - just checking to see who may remember them?)
I have many, many memories of walking the streets, so to speak, with a parent in the car, slowly keeping track of me. I have one vivid memory where my friend Lisa and I were selling calendars door to door and I have to share it because it's the kind of story we told over & over. Lisa and I were in a neighborhood we didn't know well. I think my piano teacher may have lived nearby. We were tired and very silly. I recall we hadn't sold much and were ready to throw in the towel but mom was waiting at the end of the street and we had several houses to go. We knocked on this one a door and no one answered, then knocked again. We were about to leave when this elderly woman came to the door. We asked her if she would like to buy a calendar, pocket or wall-sized, and I'll never forget this, in her loudest voice she said, "For Crying Out Loud, why do I need one of those?" It's the "crying out loud" part that had us in stitches. Of all the ways to answer a door -- just cracks me up. That phrase made it, in some form or fashion into most of our conversations for the next ten years.
Because I tend to think that what was character building for me, must be character-building for my kids, I was more than happy to walk the sidewalk while Elijah sold his candy bars. What a great way to practice speaking to adults, looking them in the eye, and at times, being told no. Sunday was such a pretty day that we made this little sales trip a family affair. Kenny and I walked and chatted, and Elijah and his sisters, who were such diligent helpers holding boxes and raffle tickets, went door to door. We did have to help Elijah with his first sales pitch. At our next-door neighbors who we knew would be generous, Elijah said, "You want some chocolates?"
After this, his pitch became a bit more professional but still so funny. After explaining that he was selling chocolate for Pearland Little League, without taking a breath or giving the neighbor a chance to say yea or nay, Elijah would start reading off all the different types of bars, "we have milk chocolate, and caramel, and this one is crispy, and that one's dark almond, and plain almond and continental almonds." Of course he mispronounced almond as AL - mond which was about the cutest thing.
For whatever reason, whether it was his sales pitch, his cute little sisters, or because the people on our street can't resist chocolate, the candy was gone within two hours and Elijah had a wad of dollars that I'm pretty sure he was disappointed he couldn't keep. We still have raffle tickets if anyone reading this is interested in winning a big Silverado truck.
I know E was pretty satisfied with himself, and I can't hide that I'm proud of his go-get-um attitude. And while he may not have suffered through a difficult "For Crying Out Loud" response to his candy request, I still think he had his character built just a little bit more.
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