Java.JUNE.2018

GIRL ON FARMER
Olympic Sales Club Dreams
BY CELIA BERESFORD
These yellow and green bikes all over the place?
I don’t really care. But it seems like it would be
a hassle to round them all up. I also see them
in dumpsters, on roofs and disassembled into
randomly strewn parts, which also doesn’t bother
me. But I would think the person funding this
whole operation wouldn’t be too happy about it.
It’s just another business that I look at and want to
say to the person, “If even I know this is a bad idea,
then it really is.” The whole bike idea is good, but as
an actual business, maybe not so much. At least, it
needs some fine-tuning.
It reminds me of this sad little hamburger shop
called Loli’s, or something, that opened near me.
The building was an awful bright green with
tropical-looking flowers all over. It made me so sad
because I just looked at it and thought, no way. Six
months later it was closed. Instead of thinking that
I jinxed this place, I thought maybe I have some
sort of intuition about if something is going to fail
or succeed. Like many of my other skills, this is one
that is hard to describe or quantify and even harder
to apply in any sort of useful way. I’m not sure what
I can do with this kind of know-how in the business
world. Especially because of my shady beginnings.
As a bored 11-year-old, I spent lots of time reading
Archie comic books while hiding from my mom so
I wouldn’t have to clean my room. This was before
I discovered more interesting things to do in the
woods, like smoke cigarettes and later pot. In these
comic books, and other magazines that targeted kids,
there were advertisements for the Olympic Sales
Club. A cartoon masked superhero rested his arms
on the shoulders of a few nice-looking kids and told
you that you could earn FAMOUS name prizes or
CASH simply by selling small gifts (basically junk)
to your friends, family and neighbors. “Everyone’s a
prospect!” Mr. Olympic reminded you. All you had to
do to join was call the 800 number.
As Mr. Olympic stood on the corner of the page, he
lorded over an extensive number of drawings of the
fancy, famous prizes you could earn. These were
what got me. Specifically, the walkie-talkies and the
GE AM/FM stereo cassette headset player caught my
eye. I ran into the house, called the toll-free number
and, as the ad told me to, asked for Chris. Seems the
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