In the summer of ‘21 it was a hot sweaty day. The sky was bright blue, the air was warm, and the world felt full of excitement. I was laying down bored on my bed when I suddenly remembered the plan my friend and I had come up with the day before. It was the best summer idea, a lemonade stand with some extra toys we found laying around. I quickly jumped out of bed and got ready, scrambling out the door yelling, “Bye Mom, I'm going to Liv’s!” As I ran up the hill out of breath to get to her house I tripped and fell over by the side of the curb. I picked myself right back up and wobbled to her house out of excitement. “That was embarrassing,” I thought to myself. When I arrived I could already see Liv preparing the signs for our lemonade stand, Glitter and sparkles all over the place, this was going to be the best day ever. After gathering all our supplies, lemonade, a small table, a few trinkets, and our beautifully decorated sign we got all ready. We were positive people would stop to buy lemonade and maybe even a few toys. We were determined to make some money and have fun while doing it.
At first, everything was going great, money was coming in and we were having such a fun time. But then after a while we realized a problem, the sun was quickly melting the ice in the lemonade. “No one wants to buy warm lemonade on a hot day!” I told my friend and she ran inside to grab some ice packs from the freezer. That's when things started to go wrong.

When she finally came back outside she had a few ice packs in her hands. I was standing across from her, fixing the toys on the table. “Catch!” she shouted suddenly, and before I even had time to respond, she threw one of the ice packs towards me. I turned around just in time to see it flying straight at my face. She gasped and I felt my numb cheek confused. “OMG, are you okay?!” she yelped. I couldn't feel a thing and started laughing. We laughed together and we both decided maybe I should go home. 

Once my mom saw it she made my dad look at it to see if we needed to go to the emergency room, that's when I started to feel the pain. My dad said it was pretty deep and suddenly we were already in the car driving to the hospital. The doctor stitched me up and I was on the way home with 5 new stitches in my face 

The next day, my friend came over looking a little nervous. She was holding a small bag and a homemade card. Inside was a cute monkey stuffed animal, some candy and that card. The card read “I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I hope you feel better soon!” I could tell she felt awful about what happened. I smiled and told her it was okay. We both laughed a little about how just a small lemonade stand ended up with me getting stitches. Now to this day we both joke about it and she feels super bad still.

Even though that’s not how I wanted that day to end up, I learned something important. Sometimes, the fastest or easiest way to do something isn't always the best way. My friend could have just walked the ice pack over instead of throwing it, and I could've paid more attention before turning around. If we had taken 3 more seconds to think, none of it would have happened. It taught me a lesson I'll never forget. Whenever I'm in a rush, I think about that ice pack, the lemonade stand, and my stitches. Now I know slowing down is the smartest thing to do.