THE SPIRIT OF ENTERPRISE: Money into the box

Today at the entrance to our local supermarket there was a kid, maybe 11 or 12, standing outside selling chocolate bars from a box.

He looked nervous as he asked people if they'd like to buy one and, as I could see as I approached, most people just walked by him.

But one guy stopped, a big and handsome man – a Pakeha perhaps in his 40s – and engaged the kid – tiny, black, perhaps from Somalia – for what looked like a serious interrogation.

I walked past but when I got inside the supermarket and was collecting a trolley I turned and saw the man walking in. I stopped him and asked with a grin what the kid was up to.

I knew anyway, because I'd been there myself once.

The man said the kid told him he was selling them to raise funds.

For what?

He said the kid had faltered and said something about a sports team.

What for?

Again the kid had stumbled and mentioned something about a trip away.

What grade?

The kid didn't really know.

The man scowled at me a bit when I laughed at what he'd said.

Yes, I'd been there before.

Once when I was about that wee boy's age, maybe a bit younger, I waited at the bus-stop down the road from us and when the people got off I would say “money for the old” and hold out a small cardboard box I'd got from somewhere.

Money for the old?

But it worked and some people actually gave me money, possibly thrupences and sixpences, just small change.

But it was enough for me to go and buy chocolate bars and lollies from the dairy nearby.

I must have eaten a lot and at a pace because when I got home I hid the remainer in the plane tree outside our house, went in – maybe even with chocolate around my mouth – and was sick in the toilet.

My mum and dad were in the lounge where they had a few people round for drinks and they asked me what had I done.

I shamefully told them and I remember them, and the elegant guests, laughing aloud.

Money for the old?

It became quite a story in our family because the chief guest in our lounge was the aide-de-camp of the Governor General whom my parents knew from somewhere.

At the supermarket I said to the serious man that I'd once done what this kid outside was doing and in brief mentioned: Money for the old.

He was clearly unamused, by the kid . . . and now me.

I said we could at least respect the kid's enterprising spirit.

But no.

Now I have no doubt that my situation -- just opportunist greed – was nothing like that of this kid who looked more like he'd been dropped off there, told what to do and would be collected later by adults who would count the winnings. If there were any.

I just felt sad and sorry for him and his pitch. It was as unconvincing as mine had been in a kinder, less confrontational and more generous time.

The kid needed kindness, not confrontation.

As the Phil Ochs song said, "there but for fortune, go you or I . . ." 

This is a harder question to ask than a casual passerby might think: “Want to buy some chocolate?”

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There But for Fortune, by Phil Ochs. 1964

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