The 50 Day Bucket List

Make a Lemonade Stand

Paint dripped over the piece of thin wood I was painting, ruining my perfect 'e', "No! I just dripped! Now what am I going to do?"

Chloe laughed at the drip then handed me a paper towel, "Try wiping it off."

I took the paper towel and tried to wipe off the paint, but instead smeared it over the entire letter. "That worked well," I muttered under my breath.

"Sorry, it worked for me," said Chloe wiping up a drip from her sign. "At least the signs look good besides that 'e'. I think they are going to work really well."

A drip of yellow paint dripped onto the concrete. "Now the patio is yellow. I am a mess today!"

Chloe giggled as I wiped up my new mess and set down the paint brush. "I need a break," she said putting her own brush down and standing up. "My sign needs to dry anyway, so let's go inside and then we can try and fix that letter on yours, it was your last one."

"Okay," I sighed getting up and brushing the dirt off my pants and following Chloe inside.

I sat down and watched as Chloe opened the fridge and took out a bottle of soda and poured some into each cup. It had only been a week and a half since I had met Chloe that day in the bathroom stall, but we had grown closer together than I had ever grown to anyone else, I had even felt fairly close to Claire when we were at the lake house. It was weird what death could do to you.

"Here you go, a nice beverage to cool you down and wake you up so you stop dripping paint everywhere."

I playfully stuck my tongue out and took the cup of soda. "Thank you madam, you are ever so nice!"

Chloe curtsied and sat down across from me, "Well, we can paint in the letters and then try and put it together, it can't be too hard."

"No, it shouldn't be. There really aren't that many pieces to put together as long as we put them together the right way. Wrong way and we're screwed."

"That's punny."

"Whoops, I didn't even try to do that."

"Are you sure you didn't? You nailed it."

"Oh my goodness, there are too many puns going around now. One accidental one was enough."

Chloe smirked and took a gulp of her drink. Once she emptied it she brought it down hard on the table surface, "Let's get back to work. We can look at the plans before finishing the painting."

"Sounds good to me," I said raising my cup up to drink the last few drops before handing it to Chloe.

Once Chloe put the cups in the sink, we went back outside and Chloe pulled out her phone scrolling through the internet page she had pulled up on how to build the stand. "Okay, the first thing we have to do is make the base. We take the biggest unpainted piece and stick it so the top is down and attach the three base pieces with glue and flip it over to secure the pieces with screws. After that we use the two poles like ones on the front two corners. Apparently our counter piece is supposed to have the front two corners cut off. After we attach those we attach the top sign that you made. Mine is the front baseboard."

"Awesome, I will start filling in my letters so we can start putting the base together. Are you going to fill yours in?"

"I was going to, but I think I will just help you so we can get the main part built while the sign dries."

"That sounds like a good plan," I took the paint can opening from the bag we had put all of our supplies in and yanked open the small orange can of paint. I took two of the smaller brushes out of the bag and handed one to Chloe. We both set on painting the letters so they would stand out more on the yellow background. I worked intently for a few minutes starting from the beginning and moving down. Went I started to near the end without meeting up with Chloe I looked over to find her delicately drawing a lemon by the end of the word.

After a second she looked over at me, "What? What's a lemonade stand without a lemon?"

"The lemons on your sign weren't enough?"

"No they weren't. My lemons are not enough so I am making you one. I'm almost done. You want to go wash the brushes in the sink in the garage?"

"Not really, but I will. It shouldn't take too long." But, boy was I wrong. It took me forever to get all the paint off the brushes. The paint seemed to cling to anything it wanted to: to handle, to bristles, my clothes. Of course there was also paint covering my hands that I couldn't get off so I ended up using special soap that Chloe showed me when she came in the was the last brush and her hands.

"Are you ready to build?"

"Sure, I can't say I've ever built anything before, but we can definitely try to make it."

"That's the spirit!"

We made our way back through the house and out to the backyard and started getting ready to build. We flipped over the counter and started putting the glue onto the three edges. Chloe carefully put down the painted board upside down on the long side, perfectly centered.

"Should these shorter pieces be centered or to the edge?" I asked Chloe.

"To the far edge," she answered gluing down one short side. I mirrored what Chloe did exactly, lining the board up as best as possible. "Now we need to let it dry a minute and then flip it over. I'll get the screws." Chloe went over to our bag of supplies and took out a handful of screws and brought them over along with an electric screwdriver. She set it down on the patio next to her feet and got ready to flip over the base.

I took hold of the opposite side, "One, two, three..." We lifted it up and set it upright.

Chloe held the first screw near the edge of where the front panel started and drilled it in. She did the same thing to all three boards multiple times before going inside to get a saw. Once she had sawed off the two front corners to be even with the support panels underneath, she had me hold the first pole up in the spot and started screwing that board into place. We did the same thing with the other pole and then checked the board I painted, but it was still damp.

"Well, once we get the sign on, I would consider this a success one lemonade stand finished. Now we just need to test it."

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A/N:

It has been a very long time since I have put an authors note, but I want to say two things: 1. Thank you so much for reading this you do not know how much it means to me to have people reading this even if I never really know you do and 2. You guys should check out the new trailer I have added to this chapter, I don't add multimedia very often so when I do, it must be good. Credit for the trailer goes to Brookieismyname