Pushing Cinnamon

It seemed in high school I always knew the kids who were selling Blow-Pops or Bazooka bubble gum. I'd see the big boxes bought from PACE or Sam's Club peeking out of their unzipped backpacks, or sometime even boldly placed on their desks and watch the sales. They were slick, while others were reading or solving math problems, they would be taking quarters for gum filled suckers. A dollar or two an hour, more at lunch. I never bought from them, but I wanted to be them. I wanted to make that bit of extra money during the school day. I wouldn't have a job for another year or two, so this would have been huge for me. Money, in my mind, meant freedom.

The next time my Mom went to PACE, rather than dodge going to the store, as I often did because of my Mom's love to reveal intimate details of my life to complete strangers, I told her I would go with her. I was looking for product.

The store was four stories of gray, concrete, fluorescent lights and enormous boxes of product. This was where you could buy Blow-Pops 100 at a time and candy bars by three or four dozens. We spent too much time looking a cereal and lettuce, Kool aid and frozen chicken. Eventually, when I could take it anymore, I asked if I could go look at the boxes of candy. With a brief explanation of my plan to get rich off my fellow students, she agreed.

I didn't want to compete with the things that people were already selling, so I thought candy bars would be ideal. Twenty dollars for plain chocolate, Thirty dollars for a box of 36 king sized Kit Kats. The math wasn't working out. No one would spend a dollar for a Candy Bar. My dream was slipping away. My Mom had gotten everything she came for and I left with nothing.

I chewed on this few a few days, while I looked for my product. I wanted it to be mostly profit, easy to sell, no competition. It was about this time, I found Hot Pix. They were these little packages of small square toothpicks, which were cinnamon flavored. They seemed to last a long time, they had just the right amount of heat. It was like a fireball. Perhaps this would be my product.

Over the next few days, whenever I had the house to myself, I would experiment. Cinnamon powder baked onto toothpicks, not much flavor. Cinnamon in water, with the picks soaking in it. Wrong flavor, a little bitter and not strong. Add sugar and it cots the bitter, but it was still wrong. I was missing something.

I don't remember the reason, but my Mom was going to Bulky Foods, which was a store I never dodged going to. Not because my Mom was less "friendly", but because Justin and I usually got a little but of candy. I love the gummy bears from Mr. Bulky. So, after picking over chocolate disks and gummy worms, breathing in the aerated sugar and enjoying the multicolored candy goodness, we got in line. Then I saw it. In a small rack, but the checkout was all of these little bottles with flavors on them. Oils. One of them, was a red liquid marked cinnamon oil.

I had soaked the dozen picks in oil for 24 hours. I couldn't sell them this way, they were sticky and stained you fingers. I loft some out and they never seemed to dry. So, the next experiment time, I laid them out on a napkin on a plate and placed them in the microwave. This was before I learned the oven was better for this kind of thing. I could smell them strongly as the microwave did its job and three minutes later, the bell rang out. Standing right there, waiting for the last second to drop off, I opened the door right away. The cinnamon oil steam burned my eyes, blinding me and making nose run. I stepped away long enough to get my vision back and tried the first one.

The stickiness was mostly gone. They were dry. I popped the stick on my tongue and the heat hit me instantly. They burned. Perfect. I loaded them into a small former medicine container and packed them in my backpack. Tomorrow I would be a seller. I would be making money on my own.