At the end of each school year, the office of the Dean of
Students would send out a notice letting students that the time has come for
requesting lockers. Each grade has its own floor; juniors have the bottom
floor, freshmen the second, seniors the third and sophomores the fourth. There
were clusters of lockers scattered on each floor, one assigned to each student.
When requesting lockers, we could request a part of the floor and a top or
bottom locker at that area. Freshman and sophomore year I was given a bottom
locker and I was really sick of it by the time junior year came around. I had
requested a top locker, but it had apparently been denied as I was given an
even numbered locker. I really, really didn't want a bottom locker, and was
prepared to fight for one on top. I went to the office of the Dean of Students
and complained, but the employees there told me that there was, of course,
nothing they could do. I then got my cross country coach, a personal friend of
mine, to write a letter to the office explaining that I was injured and my
knees were in bad shape, and I shouldn't be kneeling several times a day (there
was a morsel of truth to that). The office then later informed me that I was
given another locker assignment. It was the locker directly above my older one,
which pissed me off because that one had been empty the whole time. Now I had a
good locker and then an "extra" right below mine. They never changed
the combination, so for a while I enjoyed the space of having two lockers. A
friend of mine, let's call him Scott again, said that maybe we should put
drinks and food in there and just share it between a few of us; a private food
storage locker. I thought that was a great idea, and so we went to Shaw's and
picked up Mountain Dew, chips and candy, the bare essentials of course. We
enjoyed that for a while, until Scott thought that maybe we could make a bit of
money selling what was in my extra locker. I, again, thought that was a great
idea, and that was the foundation for our "business." We decided we
would sell Monster and Mountain Dew out of there, the drinks high school kids
live on. It was surprisingly profitable. We sold Mountain Dew for $1/can, which
we bought for about $0.60 . We sold the Monster for $4/can, or $6/2 cans, $9/3
cans, etc. We sold the Monster for $4 for the first, and $3 per each can in
"bulk," but made it look like they were getting a deal when really we
were completely ripping everybody off. It may seem absurd to buy a single drink
for $4, and it is, but the cafeteria didn't offer it and we did. Supply and
demand is very very convenient when you're the only supplier. We continued this
for no more than a month. It got pretty big and we were supplying the locker
with 24-packs every other day. As with all good things, however, it came to an
end. The administration of course found out about it, and they weren't happy.
They told us that Chartwells, the company that supplies the school with lunches
and drinks, were the only ones allowed to sell food and beverages at the
school. We declared that it was a monopoly and needed to be destroyed (now
we're just screwing with the school). They then told us that we weren't allowed
to run businesses on school property, and it would be best if we stopped. We
reluctantly agreed.
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