Modern Lemonade

December 2025

Saratoga- Our traveling reporter, Guy McDickerson, was on a drive through Saratoga the other day. He was pondering the question, “What happened to those old lemonade stands?” when he decided to try to find one, knowing that it would make a good story. He entered “Lemonade Stand” into his GPS and found one only two miles away. This surprised him, as most kid-run lemonade stands aren’t on GPS. When he got there, however, the fact that the stand was on GPS shrank in comparison to the surprise of the stand itself.

The stand was run by two eighteen-year-old friends, Thomas and Albert. These two geniuses love computers, machines, and business, so they decided to try to make a machine for producing soft drinks. When they heard who McDickerson was, they promptly agreed to give him a tour and a free sample. The stand, which they called an Automated Lemonade Producing System, or ALPS, was beyond anyone’s (except these two’s) wildest dreams. Behind the counter, there was a safe for money, a control panel for the machine, and also a screen, keyboard, etc. to interact with the machine. ALPS has two main parts. The one on the left takes orders, calculates payments, receipts, how much lemonade is left, how much profit they have made so far, and how much tax they will have to pay; it also graphs daily profits, customers, etc. The right half of the machine is the lemonade producing section. This highly compact and complicated machine makes making lemonade a piece of cake. It is connected to the home water supply. It also has a built-in water filter to take out the chlorine taste (which isn’t there, but it makes people feel better anyway to know that there is a filter). All that has to be done is to pour in the sugar and lemon juice, or powdered lemon juice concentrate, developed by Albert’s brother John, a chemist. The machine mixes about two gallons of lemonade, keeping the extra ingredients ready for use. This amazing machine adds more sugar, lemon juice, water, or any combination to a cup to fit the customer’s order. It even puts a straw and/or ice in, according to the order. Albert and Thomas agree that this is a bit overkill for a lemonade stand, but they have made it as a prototype for a machine that they plan to use in a small drive-through snack restaurant. It is already capable of producing other drinks, such as limeade, cool aid, orange fruit juice, etc. They will soon add a carbonating device to it. They are temporarily using it as a lemonade stand for two reasons. First of all, they need to make more money before they continue; secondly, both boys love the irony of having an automated lemonade stand. The Cheesy Scoop is happy to see that some are actually making good use of modern technology, and not writing nutty symphonies.

The Sypmhony

October 2025

Cambridge- Of all the crazy things to happen in the town of Cambridge this happened: Somebody supposedly named Johan Amadeus Beethoven claims to have written two symphonies worth one million dollars each. (some would think it heretical to have the same last name as Beethoven, but, as Johan said, “You can’t change what your forefathers were named.”) Most people wanted to hear these so called “masterpieces” before they bought them, but Johan refused. While some would call this understandable, others would at least wonder why Beethoven looks very similar to Blake Dunn. This was one of the CD cases:

On the back of the case it said: This stunningly heart touchingly beautiful symphony shall be forever more a treasured trove of music in the house of him who does wherefore and after now buy this music! Later, though, as people were for some strange reason ignoring him as he ran through the streets honking his wares, he finally agreed to lower the price 99.99%. An eccentric thousandaire named I Want to Remain Anonymous (That’s what he put in the box where you sign your name on the interview form) decided to buy the symphonies just to see, as he said, “What this world is coming to.” They each turned out to be a collection of about ten songs from a book for young piano students run together, added to, and messed up. Though some said that he should be fined for selling things that didn’t fit the description, others said it all depended on your interpretation of what a good symphony was. “Modern Music,” Said Johan, “Is something new. Something different from anything anyone has ever heard before. Some, who are not as inventive as me, may dislike these, but true artist will love them.” New and different, yes, sensible sounding music, no. In the end, I want to remain anonymous was paid two hundred dollars by Blake Johnson, (Yes, he wasn’t Beethoven after all), Blake was fined for selling stollen copyrighted material, and the citizens of Cambridge were given a lesson in what music could scientifically but not practically be.

Back to School

September 2025

Easton- Having not reported on this town before, we thought we might do so now and speak for a brief period on the welfare of Easton Mouseamount School, seeing as their first day of school was September 17. (Don’t worry, folks. The fancy and professional wording above is not our new style. We merely laboriously put that together so that our sponsor would keep supporting us. He only reads the first sentence and, if he likes it, keeps supporting us. He is very busy and does not have time for “trivial and childish things with cheesy wording.”) As we all know, the school year is upon us again, and so is your favorite newspaper. This is sure to be an exciting year, seeing as the price of dog toenail clippers has gone up. For a good story, we interviewed Mrs. Lagmire, the sixth grade teacher at Easton Mouseamount. The first thing she said was that they are fierce competitors with Catamount Elementary School in Bennington, but that her school is the better one. This was an odd answer to the question, “What does your class eat for breakfast?” She answered the next question, which was, “What are your goals for the school year?” like this: “I want my class to learn.” (Original, ain’t she?) “They seem to have forgotten a thing or too- I mean, two- but they are sweet students, this paper for teaching. To all students: Be and with a little help they will excel this year. The way they decorated the whiteboard shows just how smart and creative they are.”

Creative, yes; moderately good artists, yes; but good spellers and mathematicians, no. At the end of the day several said that they were very excited about the next day. Mrs. Lagmire said that this shows that they love school. Interestingly, though, they are planning a field trip for the next day, so perhaps the students were only talking about that. They might not be so excited, however, when they find out that for the field trip, they will visit Farmer Brown’s field and learn how he uses math on his farm. The school janitor, Will Hill, says that he found one thing about the class’s decorated whiteboard that he disliked. “While I thought it was kind of nice of the class to decorate the whiteboard like that, I wish that they wouldn’t have used permanent markers on the board. For some reason they didn’t seem to remember the lesson about school supplies and how to use them last year.” Too bad. On that cheerful note, happy school year everyone, and don’t forget the zero power rule! The Cheesy Scoop would like to say a special thank you to all the teachers who get good students! (Original, ain’t we!)

The Great Saltsphere Says: Education doth strengthen the student and fill his head which was before time mostly empty. Wise is the student who loves learning, and foolish is he that doth punify and uglify my sayings.

A Fair Game?

May 2025

Greenwich- As most people know, the Greenwich Fair is coming soon. Most people who will be in it have already marked their smartphone calendars, though a few people have actually marked real calendars. Philip I. S. Good has already been planning for a while. Last year went badly for him when he tried to sell “Antiques.” “No one wanted any old stuff,” said Philip. “I didn’t have anyone buy my antique computer from 2001, my washing machine and dishwasher from 2002 that couldn’t even be controlled by wifi, or a phone that could only call and take pictures! They insisted I should get stuff that the pioneers must have used, like a blow drier from way back in 1950, or stuff that Abraham Lincoln must have had, like a carpet sweeper without a motor from 1932!” He says that this year will be different; he’ll have a game where you pay $5 to climb a 40-foot tall tower, then jump off and land in a 15-foot deep pool of soft foam bricks. The way to win is to throw a dart at a balloon on the way down and pop it. The prize is two $3 bills. “If you win, you get a profit of six dollars!” Phil explains. Something about this seems fishy, though, but that doesn’t matter. What is a little odd is that Phil (we hope he doesn’t mind that nickname; it saves ink - oh, great, we just wasted more ink explaining this than it would take to use his full name every time!) eats onion bagels for a midnight snack every Tuesday. We at the Cheesy Scoop advise you not to try Phil’s game, because jumping with a dart in your hand is dangerous!

The Great Saltsphere Says: Money from money plants is counterfeit, but money from money mints is not.

An Inappropriate use of Caution Cones

April 2025

Pennsylvania- Our top (and, as you know, only) reporter Guy McDickerson took a road trip to Santa Claus, Georga, (which is actually a real place) to attend a conference for reporters who are underworked and overpaid. We only use him once a full moon or so, and he has been asking for a negative $5 addition to his hourly pay. On his way back through Penn’s Woods, he ran into a bit of traffic. There were twenty miles of caution cones set up, which forced every car on that stretch of the three-lane interstate to get into one lane. This caused a two-hour slowdown. When Guy got to the actual construction site, he was amazed to see not 30, but 30 + 20 - 15 - 5 + 0 - 28 trucks to fill two holes in the road. For those who groaned at the sight of those numbers, the answer is two. I know some of you. You started to pull out your Super Trillion-Terabyte Space Z Space Shuttle Pilot Calculating Machine to do that simple problem. WELL, LISTEN! WE- what? Oh, we no longer have Space Z as one of our supporters. How will we ever get along without that $0.0009 a year? Anyways, McDickerson noted that this project was being done by Swing Legion Line LLC. Mildly livid with frustration (probably because he had left his half-eaten can of anchovies at the junkshop in Georgia), he drove straight to Swing Legion Line’s HQ, were he went straight to the boss. Here is the conversation that took place: Guy: Why on Pluto did you put up twenty miles of caution cones for that tiny job!? Boss: It was actually 20.12599 miles. You see, we hadn’t used them there cones in 15.1029384756 years, so we figured they ought to get aired out a little. Guy: But why not air them out in your back yard? Boss: Because my yard is all full of clothes airing out. It’s 40.84123456% better for your cholesterol when you naturally air your clothes out, ya’ know. Guy: But why didn’t you just air the cones out a few at a time? Boss: Because, sonny boy, we are also going to film some scenes for a movie there, and we want the film crew to have plenty of room. After this, Guy finished his journey, armed with ways to make us use him more and pay him less. We decided to let him have a day off to get some fresh air, and film a movie called “Pacobell Canon Goes to Pluto.”

The Great Saltsphere Says: Cones are just one-third the volume of a cylinder.

Rednaxala

March 2025

Hoosick- Eugene Kendall reports that his internet has just been killed. Why this matters, nobody knows, but, more importantly, he says that he has seen the Loch Ness Monster swimming around in a half-filled green goldfish bowl in an abandoned apartment on Computer Street. You may speculate on why this matters, but most importantly, he has found a can of Rednaxela: The Jerk Drink, which is an old soft drink made of an unknown substance. What is even more amazing, he has found the RECIPE for Rednaxela, which was previously thought to be in the trash somewhere in Kansas. (Therefore, it is no longer made of an unknown substance.) The recipe is as follows: Dr. Pepper, blue Hawaiian Punch, and chocolate chips. How much of each, we do not know, but it is probably up to you to figure that out. Rednaxela was supposed to bring in a lot of income for the inventor, but, for some unknown reason, only one pitcher was ever made, so this can must be a reproduction. Go make your own Rednaxela and figure out the proportions yourself.

The Great Saltsphere Says: Ingenuity doesn’t always produce good soft drinks!

The Kidnapping

February 2024

Cambridge- There has been a kidnapping! Thomas Hogan reports that one of his kids was napped. It turns out that the kidnapper was Blake Douglas, who thought that the kid was his. The kid, named Judges G., looked just like one of the napper’s many kids, and since it had wandered into Blake’s yard, he took it and locked it in his barn. Fortunately, Blake is a nice guy, so when he counted his kids, he realized that he somehow had an extra. When Thomas called and said he was missing a kid, Blake promptly took it back to its rightful owner. We are not sorry to report that there was no romance involved, since undoubtedly Judges G. doesn’t know what romance is, anyway. Such is the life of a goat, we suppose.

The Great Saltsphere Says: Romance gums up the works of a finely tuned story!

Of Pizza and Stones

January 2024

Shushan- A strange character wants to have an AD 1000 Viking catapult on the roof of his appartement. His name is Joseph C. D! Cool (Joseph Cool Dude! Cool, better known as Cool Joe, although sometimes called “Man” or “Bro” or “Dude” or, even by his close friends, “wierdo.”) He says he just thinks that it would look neat on his roof. (He might also defend himself from Bigfoot with it.) The guy on the floor beneath him (Dr. Unsavory) also says it would add a nice touch to the appartement, yet the pilot on the bottom floor isn’t as enthusiastic, although he says he won’t mind. The catapult was given to Cool Joe as a Cool Dude Day present, from Dr. Blue Bubbles. Cool Joe has so far been very responsible. Here is the short damage list: one dented trash can, one dented tin can, one dented tuna can, one dented hydrogen can, and one dented “I’m Popeye the Sailor” can (I live near a garbage man, I’m cool to the spinach, ‘cause I eat my finish, I’m Popeye the sailor can. BOOM! BOOM!). The city had to let him have it, seeing as the exhaustive rule book forgot to mention catapults. Cool Joe did have a talk with the real deal, Joe Cool, also known as Snoopy. Cool Joe is sure to be careful now, so thanks to ol’ Snoopy, we ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. (Sorry, Miss Othmar, I meant to say “we do not have anything to worry about!” Honest!) Well, that’s all, folks. AAAUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! INCOMING ROCK!!!!!!!!!! Must be from Cool Joe, He's gone too far now! Never mind, that actually came from Little Sneezers Pizza! They’ve gone too far this time!