Cum Scouts, part 10 (bbff, bb, exh, voy, prost, oral, tease)

by this guy (this.guy20@yahoo.com)

Summary: The scouts help two teenage girls have some naughty fun at 
the mall and learn about the potential of getting people off… 




“Alright,” Pete’s grandfather began, “I promised five dollars to each 
helper…so,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.  He 
gave both Jeff and me a five dollar bill each, while we were holding 
the steel pipe steady while the concrete set around it.  

“Thanks,” Jeff and I said at the same time.

“I will be back in a little while,” Pete’s grandfather told us, before 
heading toward the old barn at the far end of the driveway.

***

Jeff and I must have been standing there holding that pipe steady for 
a good two hours before Pete’s grandfather returned.  He poked at the 
concrete a little, then told us to, “gently let go.”  We did, and the 
pipe remained upright.  “Love to see those punk kids try knocking this 
mailbox post over,” he gloated in that slightly strange old-man way.  

Jeff and I couldn’t help but laugh at his comment.

“You think I’m kidding: I’ve replaced three mailbox posts already this 
year…” Pete’s grandfather scowled.  

“Seriously?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yup,” he answered, as he tried wiggling the pipe back-and-forth in the 
concrete.  “That’s almost ready,” he thought aloud.  

“People have knocked over your mailbox four times this year?” Jeff 
asked.

“Back in January my nephew Jim backed into the mailbox coming out of 
the driveway.  The last three times, punk kids did it…” Pete’s 
grandfather explained.  

Before Jeff or me could respond, Pete and a girl who looked to be about 
thirteen or fourteen came out of the front door of the old farmhouse.  
I have to admit I was a bit puzzled by her physical appearance: she was 
really skinny, with almost non-existent boobs; her light brown hair was 
in a much shorter than average pixie cut; and to top it all off she was 
dressed unusually too: a t-shirt so long that it almost reached her 
knees (completely covering her shorts), and a pair of flip-flops with 
flat soles that looked to be nearly three inches thick.  “Gran-pa, can 
Pete drive me to the mall, so I can meet Jenna?” she asked.

“You gotta take these boys home,” their grandfather said, as he turned 
to Pete.

“Yes sir,” Pete said.  “I’ll take them with us to the mall, drop Sarah 
off, and then take them home.” 

“Alright, fine,” Pete’s grandfather said, “But before you leave, bring 
my welding gear out from the barn…”

“Yes sir,” Pete replied, as both Jeff and I headed up the driveway to 
Pete’s car.

About three seconds before Jeff and I got to Pete’s car, the skinny 
girl got into the front passenger side.  So with the front seat 
definitely taken, Jeff and I got in the back.  The three of us sat in 
the car in an awkward silence for about a minute until Pete got in and 
we pulled out of the driveway.   

Once we had traveled about fifty feet down the road, Pete spoke, “So, 
Sarah you’ll like these guys: they’re cum scouts.”

“Really,” she said as she turned and looked over the back of the seat 
towards us.  

“Rich’s little brother, Jeff is sitting behind me, and his friend Ted 
is behind you…” Pete introduced us to his sister.

“Cum scouts…  Doing a job for Gran-pa: so what do you need the money 
for?” Sarah asked.

“We need the money is so we can go to Scout’s Camp,” I explained.

“You guys seem a little old to be in the Scouts,” she commented.

“We’re both twelve,” Jeff said.

Seeing the slightly confused look on Sarah’s face, I explained further, 
“Teenagers can’t go to the camp, so this summer is our last chance to 
go…”

“Wow…you guys really wanna go to camp,” she commented with just a hint 
of a chuckle.

“Hell yeah, it’s fun: getting to sleep in a tent for two weeks, 
swimming, hiking, fishing, cooking over a camp fire…” I said.

“…No parents,” Jeff added with enthusiasm.

“The ‘no parents’ part definitely sounds good,” Sarah commented.  The 
car filled with light hearted laughter.  

“So, ah, what are you gonna buy at the mall?” Jeff asked, clearly 
trying to make conversation.

“Buy: nothing,” Sarah began explaining, “Mia and I are gonna…” 

“Mia?  Gran-pa doesn’t like you hanging out with her,” Pete interrupted.

“Oh, we’ll be fine,” Sarah commented, a bit of condescension in her 
voice.

“The last time you hung out with Mia at the mall some guy tried to 
abduct you,” Pete said to his younger sister.

Sarah looked back and forth between me and Jeff of a few seconds before 
saying, “Scouts are supposed to do good deeds, right?”  Jeff and I both 
nodded.  “So what if your good deed for the day was making sure nothing 
bad happens to Mia and me while we tease old guys, and try to get guys 
who work in the stores to give us stuff.” 

“So what do we get out of it?” I asked; hoping for more money.

“I don’t have any money with me…and Mia probably won’t either…” Sarah 
paused for a second in thought before pulling her knees up to her 
chest and removing her flip-flops.  “Here, hold these,” she said 
shoving the thick soled sandals at me, “while I climb over the seat.”

I had barely laid my fingers on the flip-flops that were being passed 
over the seat, when Pete asked, “Uhm, Sarah; when was your last…” 

“Oh, I’m just gonna suck them off,” Sarah interrupted her brother, as 
she began climbing over the back of the car’s bench front-seat.  “And 
when we leave the mall Mia will do the same,” she added as she flopped 
into the back-seat between Jeff and me.

Less than half a second after Sarah’s butt hit the back seat; Jeff had 
already undone the fly on his shorts and was fishing his dick out.  I 
could see a smile appear on her face when she noticed that my best 
friend had his hard twelve-year-old dick out.  

“Your shoes,” I said, offering the thick-soled flip-flops back to 
Sarah.

“Thanks for holding ‘em,” she said, taking the flip-flops from me.  She 
dropped them on the floor of the car and shoved her feet in.

Turning towards Jeff, Sarah said, “Looks like you’re going first,” 
before leaning over his lap.  

I heard a combination of sucking sounds and humming for a couple 
minutes.  Then my best friend began breathing heavier, before groaning, 
“Oh my god…”  From the heavy breathing, and groaning I was pretty sure 
my best friend was shooting his hot twelve-year-old boy cream into / 
down Sarah’s thirteen-year-old throat.  

A moment later, Sarah spun around and was un-doing the fly on my 
shorts.  She casually reached in and pulled out my almost completely 
hard twelve-year-old dick.  Leaning over; she engulfed my dick in her 
mouth in one movement.  As she began sucking on my dick, she started 
quietly humming the theme song from that early ‘80’s movie ‘Sheriff’s 
School’.  I could feel the sound as vibrations in my dick: it was both 
strange and felt incredible at the same time.  

Little more than forty-five seconds after Sarah had engulfed my dick 
in her mouth, I felt my balls draw up an instant before I shot a 
powerful spurt of my hot twelve-year-old boy cream into her 
thirteen-year-old mouth.  She eagerly swallowed the cream down a 
millisecond before the second spurt of my boy cream was spewing out 
of my dick.  She swallowed again…I shot another spurt of boy 
cream…she swallowed again…it went on like that until I had shot 
seven nice big spurts of my hot twelve-year-old boy cream into her 
thirteen-year-old mouth.  She kept sucking until my twelve-year-old 
dick began to soften in her mouth.

Sarah righted herself and retuned to a normal sitting position on the 
back seat between me and my best friend before saying, “Wow, you guys 
really are a couple of good Cum Scouts,” with a giggle.

“Told you…” Pete commented form the front seat of the car.

“You told your sister?” Jeff nervously asked.

“Sure,” Pete replied, “She knows what I do, I know what she does…” he 
trailed off.

“So long as our Gran-pa doesn’t find out, it’s all good,” Sarah added 
as she raised her arms up and put them on the top of the seat’s back 
behind the heads of my best friend and myself.

“Cool,” I said, not entirely sure what I meant, or where I was going 
with the thought.  

A moment later, Sarah had changed the discussion back to Jeff and me 
going to Scouts Camp.  We talked about that until we reached the mall.

***

My best friend and I followed Sarah into the mall through the 
lower-level entrance near the A. T. Stuart* department store.  We 
waited for a few minutes in the lower level concourse for Sarah’s 
friend Mia to arrive.  

“Hey Mia,” Sarah said, looking past me.  I turned around to see an 
incredibly skinny and surprisingly tall girl who looked to be about 
fifteen walking towards us.  When Mia was about five feet from me I 
noticed the smell: cigarette smoke, she positively reeked of the stuff.  

Sarah continued speaking, “These guys are Cum Scouts: they’re gonna 
make sure nothing bad happens to us while we’re having fun.”  

“That’s good,” Mia said through the naughtiest smile I’ve ever seen.  

“Whoa; you’re really tall,” Jeff commented.

Shaking her head Mia replied, “Nah, these shoes just make me look that 
way.”  

Looking down at her feet I almost didn’t believe my eyes.  The sole of 
each of shoe was made from a single piece of three-quarter inch thick 
plywood bent into a U-shape: the piece of plywood began about three 
inches above the floor under the ball of her foot and ran forward 
under her toes, then bent down vertically before turning back 
horizontally and running along the floor all the way to the heel, 
where it bent upwards running vertically for about six inches, it 
then bent forwards and downwards at about a thirty-degree angle, 
running under her heel for about two inches before stopping.  
Amazingly, there was NOTHING under the middle / arch area of her feet.  
Three strips of braded fabric (two over the toes / ball of her foot 
and another one wrapping around the ankle) were all that seemed to 
hold the shoes on her feet.  

“Cool shoes,” I commented. 

“Never saw any that looked like that before,” Jeff added.

“That’s because they’re not so easy to walk in,” Mia said.

“Not to mention kinda uncomfortable,” Sarah added.

“Then why wear them?” Jeff asked.

“Cause they make me taller, and make me look sexy,” Mia said looking 
at Jeff like he was an idiot.

“Well, they definitely look cool,” I honestly said.

“A guy who gets it,” Mia said before bending over slightly (she had to, 
wearing those shoes she was a good eight inches taller than me) and 
kissing me on the cheek, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Ted,” I said then pointing at my best friend added, “This is 
Jeff.”

“Alright, now that we’ve made our introductions, it’s time to have 
some fun,” Sarah said.  

“Oh yeah,” Mia said as she took my arm.  Sarah took Jeff’s arm and 
the four of us began walking us down the concourse towards a 
teenybopper girl’s clothing store.  

***

We spent quite a while walking with the two teenage girls from store 
to store in the mall.  At about every third store they managed to get 
a male clerk to give them a free sample of the merchandise: several 
pairs of shoes, a couple revealing dresses, some ankle bracelets, 
some exceedingly revealing one-piece bathing suits (each one 
containing less material than a bikini), two tiny t-shirts with dirty 
slogans on them (one read “I” a heart symbol “cock”, the other read 
“dirty girl”).  Jeff and I ended up carrying the bags with their 
‘free samples’ from all the various stores the two teenage girls had 
gotten stuff from.  

The weird thing about it, though, was that when we were walking from 
store to store the girls always walked next to each other, hooking 
their outer arms into ours.  When we went up steps or escalators the 
girls made Jeff and me go ahead of them; but when we were going down 
they went ahead of us.  

***

About two hours after meeting Mia, while both girls were trying on 
pair after pair of designer sneakers, Jeff quietly commented, “Wasn’t 
the guy in the red shorts in the sunglasses store too…”

I looked across to the men’s side of the store.  There was a 
significantly over-weight guy who looked to be about thirty-five 
wearing red shorts trying on a pair of basketball sneakers.  Strangely, 
he didn’t seem to be looking at the three-hundred dollar pair of 
sneakers he was lacing up at all; he was looking across the store 
towards where Sarah and Mia were sliding their bare feet into one pair 
of designer sneakers, standing up, sitting back down, pulling their 
feet out of those sneakers, before moving on to another pair of 
sneakers and repeating the process.  “He’s staring at Sarah and Mia,” 
I quietly said to Jeff.

Looking at the two teenage girls, Jeff commented, “Only a gay guy 
wouldn’t look at them…”

“Yeah,” I replied with a chuckle.  Then, out of the corner of my eye 
I saw three guys who looked to be late-teens sitting on a bench out in 
the concourse that I had noticed following us.  “Those guys sitting on 
the bench in front of the planter,” I said flicking my eyes in the 
direction of the door into the store from the concourse, “Pretty sure 
I saw them before: first on the lower concourse, then up the escalators 
to the upper concourse.”  

Jeff turned towards the front to the store, “Yeah I noticed them 
before too,” he said quietly, before taking a couple steps over to a 
table and declaring, “Check it out, man: furry socks!”

Moving over next to my best friend, I looked at the hideously patterned 
pink and purple socks on the table in front of him.  “Think they’re 
made from shag carpet?” I commented with a laugh.  

“Salesman says we can have a couple pairs of those,” Mia said from so 
closely behind me I nearly jumped out of my skin.  Turning around to 
face Mia, I literally bumped my upper arm into her practically 
non-existent left boob.  Before I could tell her I was sorry for 
bumping into her, she kissed me on the cheek again.  Her mouth was a 
small fraction of an inch from my cheek when she whispered, “You’ll 
like ‘em.  They’re real soft: perfect for jerking off into when you’re 
alone…”

“Really…” I pondered aloud; my dick twitching in my shorts at the very 
thought as Mia took a small step backwards.  

“I’ll even model ‘em for you afterwards…” she added in a seductively 
hushed voice.

A small fraction of a second later Sarah startled us when she 
commented, “OH MY GOD!…check it out… These are the same sneakers Kat 
Mitchell wore in the first episode of ‘Glory’s Hull’.”

Turning around I was shocked by how hideously ugly the sneakers Sarah 
was wearing were.  The shiny purple, red, and tan mid-calf height 
high-tops looked completely ridiculous: not only were the colors of 
the leather hideous; but the pattern the three colors were in combined 
with the anti-freeze green colored laces, open toe, soles that looked 
just a little too thick, and the strangely shaped top of the sneakers…  
“Oh, wow…” I managed to say, doing my best to hide how I actually felt 
about the looks of those sneakers.

Sarah stood up and walked around a bit before commenting, “They feel 
real good to walk in…”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Jeff had returned to where 
Sarah and Mia had been sitting and picked up the box.  “Four-hundred 
and eighty dollars!?” he declared.  

“Yes sir,” the clerk said, “They’re designed by Bruce Clive to be 
specifically worn without socks.  They are the best pair of sneakers 
we’ve ever seen…”

“Well, yeah…but four-hundred and eighty dollars!?” Jeff said. 

Sarah walked over next to Jeff and whispered something into his ear.  
While Jeff walked over to where Mia and I were standing near the furry 
socks; I overheard Sarah say, “I really like ‘em…maybe we could work 
something out…” to the clerk.

“Well…let’s see what else we got in the back room,” the clerk said to 
Sarah.  The two of them promptly disappeared through a door into the 
back room of the store.

Turning to Jeff, I began to ask, “So what’s Sarah…”

“She said she was gonna have sex with him in exchange for the sneakers,” 
Jeff quietly explained.

I almost didn’t believe my ears until I heard Mia say, “That’s how I 
got my shoes…well, actually that guy put it in my butt…”

“Seriously?” I commented.

“Yup,” Mia replied before adding, “You’d be amazed what guys’ll give 
you in exchange for getting them off…”

For a good fifteen minutes there wasn’t a single word spoken between 
Jeff, Mia, and I.  Suddenly I heard myself saying, “How many guys have 
you gotten off in exchange for stuff?”

Smiling a somewhat naughty smile, Mia began, “Well let’s see…” she 
took a breath and continued speaking, “My uncle gave me his old van, 
there’s the shoes I’m wearing…” she trailed off.

“You’ve got a van?” Jeff asked.

“Unh-huh, how you think I got here?” Mia replied.

“What, like a minivan?” Jeff asked.

“No,” Mia replied shaking her head, “It was his old plumbing van…”

“Oh…” I commented, surprised by the idea that she was driving an old 
plumbing van.

“I helped a couple guys get off in exchange for re-painting it; and a 
couple more guys to make the inside nice,” Mia explained.

“Cool…” Jeff said.

A couple seconds later Sarah re-emerged from the door to the back room 
of the store wearing the incredibly ugly and outrageously expensive 
sneakers.  She put her flip flops into one of the bags from one of the 
other stores she’d managed to get a ‘free sample’ from, while Mia put 
a pair of the ‘furry socks’ into another bag.  Seconds later the four 
of us were leaving the sneaker store.  

“Look at that!” Jeff declared when we were in front of EXTREME TO THE 
MAX (the sporting goods store), stopping the other three of us dead in 
our tracks.  

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Look…” he repeated; pointing at the window of EXTREME TO THE MAX. 

“What are we looking at? The tent?” I questioned.

“Look, they got tent-lifts,” Jeff beamed; as he began guiding us 
towards the window.

“What’s a tent-lift?” Mia asked in the most confused sounding voice 
I’ve ever heard.

“It’s what’s under the tent,” Jeff directed out attention downwards.

“Oh man…” I began to say before explaining, “A tent-lift is this 
blow-up thing which goes under the tent to lift it off the ground so 
if it rains water can’t get in.”

“Oh…” Mia and Sarah said at the same time.

“I wonder how much it costs,” Jeff was clearly thinking out loud.

“Considering they want two hundred bucks for a basketball, probably a 
lot,” I heard myself saying in the exact same tone I’d heard my father 
used numerous times when complaining about ‘high end’ stores.  Then, 
in a more normal tone I added, “And we still don’t have enough money 
to go to camp…”

“Oh yea…” Jeff immediately sounded depressed.

For about ten seconds the four of us stood there without saying a 
word.  Then Mia said, “Hey isn’t this the place where that guy is 
always sayin’ ‘oh you go girl’ and flicking his wrist whenever he 
sees a really well dressed woman?”

“Yea…yeah it is,” Sarah confirmed Mia’s comment.

“So what?” I asked.

Both girls began laughing, then Mia explained, “The guy who runs the 
place is REALLY gay: you could probably get him to give you one for 
sucking him off.”

Jeff and I just looked at each other.

“Well let’s see how much it costs,” Sarah suggested.  Mere seconds 
later the four of us were in the store.

“Twelve-hundred dollars!” Jeff gasped when he saw the price tag.

“At that kind of price you’ll have to do a lot more than suck him off,” 
Mia quietly informed us.

Before I could fully process what Mia was saying, there was a snapping 
sound behind us followed by the words, “Bruce Clive’s: oh you go girl,” 
spoken is a decidedly effeminate male voice.  Turning around, the four 
of us found ourselves face-to-face with the ‘living-stereotype of gay 
guys’ who ran the store.  

“Good to know there are guys who appreciate stylish sneakers,” Sarah 
responded; somehow managing to keep a straight face in spite of the 
completely ludicrous statement we’d just heard.

“Well, yea…” the really gay guy said, before adding, “I don’t think 
they’ll fare so well in tha woods when ya go campen’…”

“I ain’t taking brand new designer sneakers camping,” Sarah declared.

Jeff managed to get us back on topic by saying, “Right…so we’re looking 
for a tent-lift…” 

“Oh, a tent-lift…” the ridiculously gay guy interrupted.

“Yeah…” I reinforced the idea.

“I think we’re all sold out...” the comically gay-stereotype of a store 
manager said.

“There’s one in the window,” Jeff said, pointing at the window of the 
store.

“Well, yes; there is the floor sample,” the store manager replied, 
“But it’s been used, ya wouldn’t want that…”

“Used is better than none at all,” I commented.

“Well yes, I suppose that’s true,” the store manager agreed while 
rolling his head in an odd and decidedly creepy way, “I could sell 
you that one if you want it…”

“You said it’s used, the price tag says twelve-hundred dollars…that 
can’t be right for a used one,” Mia began to try negotiating.

“Yes, you’re right, that is the price for a new one.  It is used and 
there’s no box.  So…” he paused for a second before offering, 
“Eight-hundred.”

“No box? How are we supposed to move it?” I questioned.

“Eight hundred!?  It’s USED and there’s NO box!” Jeff declared.

“Yes, well, yes: you got a point there,” the store manager said in a 
pensive and very feminine tone.  He took a breath before saying, 
“Right, I s‘pose seven…no, six-ninety-nine is ‘bout right…”

While I can’t say for certain that Jeff was shocked by that still 
very high price, I know I was.  

Mia was clearly aware of what we were thinking because she leaned in 
close to the effeminate store manager and quietly suggested, “Maybe 
these guys could do something to get off the price…”

The store manager gasped; then gave both Jeff and me a head-to-toe 
looking over before saying, “Maybe they could…”

“Could what?” I asked despite not wanting to know what this super gay 
guy might be thinking.

“Well…” he began to speak before leaning in close to Jeff and I, “Hows 
about you let me watch the two of you suck each other off?”

“If we do that, we get it for free,” Jeff surprised me by boldly 
suggesting.

“Well, it is a floor sample…so yea, I s’pose that will be fine,” the 
store manager answered before saying, “Let’s see what we got in tha 
office…”

Jeff and I promptly followed the living-stereotype of a gay guy into 
the store’s office.  He locked the door behind us and gave us more 
instructions, “You’re both gonna strip and you’re both gonna swallow 
everything.”

Jeff and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and nodded 
‘yes’ before beginning to shed our clothes.  

“So, how do we both suck you at the same time?” Jeff asked as he 
grabbed the bottom of his shirt.  He had a good point: how had I not 
thought of that…

“Wha…no, you’ll such each other,” the store manager replied.  I sure 
as hell wasn’t expecting that answer.

“You don’t want us to suck you?” I asked as my t-shirt cleared my head.

“Well…” the comically gas store manager responded, “I’m sure I’d enjoy 
it, but I don’t want you to get sick…”  

Upon hearing that, Jeff gave me a strange look.  But nonetheless, and 
without saying a word, we continued shedding our clothes.

After having removed my shirt, shorts and underpants, but still 
wearing my sneakers and socks; I asked, “You want us to suck each 
other at the same time?”

“That’d be good,” the overly gay store manager answered as he unzipped 
the fly on his pants and pulled out his semi-hard dick.

Without any further instruction, Jeff and I layed down on the floor on 
our sides facing each other in a head-to-toe orientation.  With 
surprisingly little skootching around we lined up our faces at each 
other’s crotches.  I was astounded to see that Jeff’s dick was 
throbbing…throbbing so much that I had to use my hand to steady it so 
I could line my mouth up with it.  

I took a breath, opened my mouth, and plunged my head down over my 
best friend’s twelve-year-old dick.  As I had the other night, I 
swallowed just as the tip of his dick got to my throat.  Once again 
it popped into my throat, enabling me to move my head down until my 
nose bumped against Jeff’s pubic bone.

A fraction of a second after Jeff’s dick entered my throat; I felt 
the warm wetness of his mouth on my stiff dick.  I felt him gag, back 
off my dick and plunge his head down again…swallowing this time: 
allowing my dick to enter his throat.  We both began repeatedly 
swallowing: our throat muscles rippling around each other’s dicks.

About thirty seconds after my best friend’s dick entered my throat I 
felt it swell in my mouth.  I knew he was shooting his boy-cream.  
Wanting to make it as good as possible for my best friend I keep my 
head still and continued repeatedly swallowing: allowing him to shoot 
his hot twelve-year-old boy cream right down my throat.  I counted 
the number of times I felt his dick swell in my mouth.  If it swelled 
each time it shot a spurt of boy cream, he must have shot ten spurts 
before his dick began to soften…

Little more than a second after Jeff’s dick began to soften, I felt my 
balls draw up.  An instant later I was shooting a powerful spurt of my 
hot twelve-year-old boy cream down my best friend’s throat.  A second 
spurt followed…then a third…and a fourth…and a fifth…  When my dick 
stopped shooting after only seven spurts I was marginally disappointed, 
but then it wasn’t like we were sucking each other for our own pleasure: 
we were doing it to get a gay guy to give us a tent lift.

As our dicks softened we let them slip out of our mouths before 
returning to a standing position.  

“So we’re good?” Jeff asked.

“Not quite yet,” the store manager replied as he continued stroking 
his hard dick.  

An instant later the store manager’s body tensed up and four of ropes 
of gay-guy cream shot out of the little hole at the tip of his dick.  

“That’s better,” he said with a pant before standing.  As he was 
putting his deflating dick back into his pants he instructed, “Open 
your mouths so I can see you swallowed it all.”

Still wearing nothing but our shoes and socks, Jeff and I tilted our 
heads back slightly and opened our mouths as wide as we could.  The 
store manager looked inside Jeff’s mouth then mine to see that our 
mouths were empty aside from our tongues and teeth.

“Alright boys, get dressed.  The tent lift is yours, I’ll get it out 
of the window, but you gotta deflate it,” he told us.  

Jeff and I quickly re-dressed and returned to the front part of the 
store with the manager.  

It was almost amazing how easily the store manager removed the tent 
lift from under the fully assembled tent in the store window.  More 
surprising, if that was really possible, was how challenging it was 
for Jeff and I to deflate and then roll-up the tent lift so we could 
carry it out of the sporting goods store.  



 * Author’s note and fun fact: A. T. Stuart was an actual 19th century 
dry-goods / department store in New York City.  Despite the fact that 
the company hasn’t existed for nearly a century, their multistory 
full-city-block store (which dwarfs the typical bog-box store of today) 
is still standing between Lafayette Street and Broadway a few blocks 
south of Union Square.