I was a freshman in high school walking home after baseball practice. It was dusk out, the day confused with night. I was approached by an individual—a teen slightly older than I was—while walking through a church parking lot in a quaint suburban neighborhood. The kid was dressed in a cloak of black like the Lord Sith. He smelled poignant. And he whispered something to me. Then, after a moment, he hissed louder, “Dime bag?” I graciously replied No, and continued on my way home, stealing glimpses back behind me.

The encyclopedia Britannica (the earliest version of Google) offered little help when I tried to discover the non-literal meaning of this dime-bag-phrase. I’m sure the kid was trying to make money selling whatever it was. I would have bought it if it were, say, a cupcake.

Most recently, some 15 years later, I did buy a cupcake… from a teen. She was selling them out of a shoebox. She did not smell poignant. Nor did she hiss. She was just a student too young to have a real job fronting toothpaste in an aisle at CVS, and she was peddling cupcakes from a shoebox in my class. And I bought one.

I was impressed by her business savvy. Sure, I could slam her with a detention, since it’s against school policy to sell anything on school grounds (expect for maybe bags of dimes, which I don’t understand why anyone would buy money). But I was hungry and wanted a cupcake in a shoebox.

I asked her how long she had been doing it. All school year, she said.

I asked her how much profit she makes. Enough to not share with the rest of the class, she said.

I asked when she makes them. Every night, during dinner, they’re in the oven baking.

How much for materials? Well, how much for mix and frosting?

I’m a guy, I said, you tell me. You want in or something, she said, because you can’t have in.

I asked, A box a day? She said, Yeah, a box a day.

So I bought a cupcake and cookie—she had those in a plastic bag. I bought one of each, $1.50 total. When the bell rang I did some calculating. A shoebox holds 12 cupcakes, stacked 24. At .75 cents a pop, that’s $18 a day, $90 a week for selling cupcakes out of a shoebox. That’s not including cookie sales, which likely match the $90-a-week from her cupcakes.

I brought this up with some colleagues, and was informed that selling out of a backpack isn’t that uncommon. One kid, a teacher-colleague told me, sells miscellaneous items from his backpack: water, notebooks, pens, flashdrives, pop-tarts, travel-sized Kleenex, hand sanitizer, and chips. He comes to school, I heard, to sell these things. He has a client-base established. He just sits in class, does nothing, and sells during passing period, being sure to not be a distraction.

Another student, from what I hear, does coffee-runs. Give the kid two bucks, he will run across the street to 7-11—risking suspension—and buy a $1 dollar cup of coffee, pocketing the change. Coffee, energy drinks, soda, whatever their clients need but are afraid to get off-campus, this runner will get.

Parents can seek solace knowing that their child has access at school to discounted food-items, a beverage delivery services, and bargain school supplies.

Kids are the dumbest smart people I know—especially ones who have to peddle Kleenex from a backpack, cupcakes from a shoebox, and risk suspension for a buck. These are also kids that come from broken homes, and are helping generate money for their brothers, sisters, and unemployed (or minimally employed) parent or guardian. Although I suspect some do it to pay for their monthly cell phone bill.

These are not kids slinging dope or selling pills. They’re not kids approaching you on quite suburban streets asking if you want a dime bag. Deans and hall-monitors, including myself, are rather oblivious to these school-peddlers. And they should be. What they are selling is perfectly legal, and in many cases important (as evident with notebook, pen and pencil sales). The penalty, if caught (and if enforced) is a detention at best.

The number of kids doing this is minimal, and doesn’t detract from school-generated funds made by the cafeteria, or from the vending machines. To me, it is a simple few taking advantage of a loophole in the educational system. And it’s damn smart.