{"id":526,"date":"2026-02-21T14:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T14:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=526"},"modified":"2026-02-22T23:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:53:10","slug":"the-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=526","title":{"rendered":"The Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
She shows up with a shine in her eyes
and a sandwich board crafted 
to look like a giant chocolate chip cookie. 
Cookies for Sale! Support us! <\/em>It reads.
She proudly dons her custom costume
held up with sturdy black suspenders. 

She raises vibrant boxes in the air
her voice matches their brightness 
as she exclaims, on repeat:
\u201cCookies for Sale! Over there!\u201d

The passersby stop to observe
some are startled, most are charmed
they tilt their heads
consider a sweeter future
and make their way
to our booth down the bend.

\u201cWe\u2019re at your table because of her, she was so passionate!\u201d

\u201cThat young girl was so effective, she got us to come here.\u201d

\u201cWe were told to try the new flavor, we heard it's tasty!\u201d

\u201cYour Scout down there reminded us it\u2019s time to buy.\"

\"We love to support the girls, thanks for being here.\u201d

What a difference it makes 
to put care into doing
to be creative and brave 
and bold and loud
to ask for, no command, attention
to gather and engage strangers 
in the pursuit of mutual happiness.

For every person she converts
to a tally on our sheet
she brings us one more dollar
that we can all use for our 
scouting award projects and badges.

While the rest of us troop members
stack cookie boxes 
and staff the transactions
our eager entrepeneur's 
priming of the public 
helped us all feed the masses
in belly and heart.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe Sell,\u201d a poem on enthusiastic young entrepreneurs, written Saturday, February 21, 2026, poem 052 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: Wall of Cookie Cases, by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[38,172,171,40,186,10,179,175],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-community","tag-entrepeneurship","tag-girls","tag-kids","tag-money","tag-parenting","tag-skills","tag-traditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}