Lori's Wedding Business

So, you may recall my story about Keegan and Tanner “heely-ing” down the Las Vegas strip at 11:00 at night following my cousin Trinda’s wedding last July. Well, her sister, Lori, got married this past weekend and the boys decided to give me something to write about again. This time, there were some other accomplices in the story. The under 7 year old crew at the wedding consisted of Keegan and Tanner, McGuire (my other cousin, Kelly’s son), and Evan and Tucker (my cousin Jay’s boys). During the course of the evening, the 5 boys dodged golf balls, continually hurt themselves, were kicked off the golf course, broke glasses, ate about 50 pounds of candy, etc. You know, typical boy stuff.

Towards the end of the night Dusty, his long lost twin brother known as Bapa and I, are standing around catching up on our lives when I do the typical good dad thing and wish like heck that I don’t have to put my beer down to go look for my boys so I quickly scan the room to make sure they are a) still within my sight and b) that they are not destroying something.

To my surprise AND admiration, I look over and find Keegan and Evan standing next to a woman I have never seen before opening up her purse getting ready to hand them money. I look at Dusty and said, “Dude, check this out. Evan and Keegan are collecting money from those people.” Upon further review, we notice Keegan with a handful of bubbles and rock candy and Evan standing next to him with a bag full of coins. Dusty, with what I consider the second best line of the night says, “Look, they’re playing good cop-bad cop”! So after Keegan and Evan tapped out Table # 4, I intercepted them on their way to Table # 5 and had this conversation:

Proud Dad: “How did you get all that money and what are you guys doing?”
6 year old Entrepreneurs (Evan & Keegan): “We are selling bubbles and rock candy to everybody”
Proud Dad: “Where did you get the bubbles and rock candy?”
E & K: “From the other people”
Dusty: “That is genius. Solid inventory at no cost.”

In my head, I then rewound the earlier events from the night when I remember everybody getting up to get in line to get dinner and noticed little 4 year old Tucker going around to everybody’s now unattended place settings and taking their rock candy on a stick. Of course, he was planning on that being his personal stash without the thought that he was collecting for big brother Evan who was going to turn that into some cold hard cash.

Added side note story: This prompted Nonny (my mom’s mom) to tell a similar story of how when my mom was little she came walking home with a bunch of money only to be greeted at the door by big brother, AKA Uncle Doug, grabbing the cash out of her hand and saying thank you. Apparently, Doug had got a hold of something worth selling, and then did what any good big brother would do and let his little sister go sell it for him and bring him back the earnings.

So, the cute part of the story came when we found out the boy’s sales pitch. They asked people for their bubbles and rock candy sticks and then resold them (sometimes to the same people) telling them that it was going to Haiti relief efforts. At Keegan and Tanner’s school, they have a jar that the kids put loose change in that is called “Coins for Caring” and the Haiti relief effort is one of the outreaches that is supported. Evan’s dad, Jay, is in the navy and he was on the first ship that arrived in Haiti after the disaster hit so it all tied in to a pretty cool story.

At the end of the night, we had to pry the boys away from their business venture and Tanner collected all the extra bubbles and rock candy he could. With tons of hope on his face said, “We can go through our neighborhood to collect more when we get back home.” Sure enough, we roll into Aliso Viejo the next day and the boys immediately grab their stash and head out. At the end of the day, all the cousins collected $27.34 and Keegan and Tanner are soooo excited to put it in the jar at school tomorrow. I am forcing Kari to go watch (and film) because I want to see the look on Miss Lynn’s face when the typical 13 cents is put in and then Keegan (and Tanner if he is not too shy) come strutting up on stage with a bank roll.

Keep in mind that the wedding was at Paso Robles Country Club and there was a bar filled with 19 holers in the room adjacent to the wedding reception room. That leads to the end of my story and the funniest line of the wedding night. As Kari, Keegan, Tanner and I were walking out to the car Keegan said, “Wow, those people in the snackbar gave us $5.00!” I slammed on the breaks and said, “You went into the bar area to collect?” He said, “Yeah” in a manner that made me feel like I was crazy for not recognizing all the clients they had at their disposal. Priceless!