When life gives you lemons, it's not safe to make lemonade without a license

Who knew that one of my favourite motto's "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" would end up backfiring? One little girl had to learn this lesson the hard way.

I was scrummaging around on the NPR facebook page today, and I was a bit curious about one article titled, "Zealous Health Inspector Busts Ore. Girl For Unlicensed Lemonade Stand".

Crazy but true. 7-year-old Julie Murphy's lemonade stand was shut down at an art fair. Go figure some overzealous inspector should be such a stick in the mud. A screw loose? Perhaps.

Technically he was in the right, I mean if she were an adult. And I assume she was backed by an adult, so shouldn't the inspector instead have gone after the child's legal guardian? Seems to me the child would a) never have known better, b) was doing what every child dreams of, c) was proud of herself, d) is now quite ashamed. This inspector is not only ethically wrong, in my opinion, but also has possibly scarred this child for life; not to mention the fact that the next time this girl gets the urge to sell lemonade, or start another entrepreneurial project in the future, she might think twice, and the next female conglomerate could fall by the wayside.

On the other hand, this could have actually been a very good thing. I'm thinking that Julie may end up being one up on her peers, becoming quite prepared and knowledgeable on the laws of enterprise. My hope is that she'll learn from this and take the world by storm the next time around. And that she and others will continue to fight for their rights and make necessary changes in our laws and ethics systems, all while preserving the simple beauties and heritage of our cultures' ancestries, like kids selling lemonade for example (or whatever those may be).
 

So I suppose one of my favourite mottoes hasn't been thwarted after all... I suppose in retrospect, Julie Murphy's lemonade stand fiasco can teach us how to make lemonade out of lemons, even if someone shuts us down.