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“You guys should have a contest,” Two-Bit drawled. He was sprawled against the front counter, his arms dangling lazily on the other side.
The bakery was quieter than a church on Tuesday. So was the auto shop across the street. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything happening on their little block this afternoon besides the odd rumble of thunder rolling somewhere in the distance. Darry was seated at one of the smaller tables, willing anything to happen. A contest though, was not exactly what he had in mind.
“What?”
“A contest. Ya know, a competition.”
“Yeah, I know what a contest is. What for?”
“To change the name of this place.”
Darry feigned shock, but this wasn't the first time a renaming had been brought up. As much as he hated to admit it, he could see where Two-Bit was coming from. Even so, he couldn't help but feel a little offended. Their bakery had sported the same name since it first opened years ago. Still… He wouldn't say it out loud, but maybe Two-bit was right. The sign out front was more than a little old. It was dented in several places. The faded blue paint was in dire need of a touch-up. But it’d been the same forever. The same letters, in the same order, in the same place. It was a staple, and the name was a perfectly accurate description of what the family business stood for.
Two-Bit piped up. “It’s quite literally just the word ‘Bakery,’ man. It doesn’t exactly leave a lot to the imagination.”
“Well it’s straightforward,” Darry insisted. “People don’t need to imagine what it's like. It’s a bakery. We bake things and sell them.”
Two-Bit walked into the back kitchen without asking if it was cool. Darry pretended not to hear the soft sounds of items being shuffled around and Two-Bit muttering, “I know y’all have jars here somewhere. Y’all just seem like jar people.”
Minutes later, he'd emerged with an empty mason jar and was setting up a little display near the register.
The tiny chalkboard with a terribly drawn muffin and discount prices was erased. What replaced it read “IDEAS FOR BAKERY RENAMING,” in Two-Bit’s scraggly handwriting, and an arrow pointing to the jar.
“Okay, so hear me out. Use this jar to collect ideas for a new name. People can use this chewed-up pencil I found near the register. Got any paper to write on?”
“No.”
“So, yes. At the end of the week, choose the best ones. Write the names of those ideas on different jars. Then customers vote by dropping change into the jar with their favorite choice. And the jar with the most tips wins. Ta da! That’s your new name. It’s so easy.”
Darry sighed. “Sounds like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Uh, it’s worth nothing. If anything, you’ll be making money.”
Darry thought about how much every little bit helped - even the change from the tip jar. He replaced the chewed-up pencil with a new one and started tearing a blank sheet of paper into little strips.
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At the end of the week, he found himself seated around a table with his brothers. The door was locked and they were all done cleaning for the evening. It was well after closing time and all Darry wanted to do was go home. They dumped the contents of the jar out in front of them and were sorting through the folded scraps of paper they had gotten this week. Darry had expected maybe ten, tops. It was a gross misjudgement; they’d received well over fifty.
Most of them were inappropriate and a few of them were phone numbers. After weeding out what they couldn't use, it was more like twenty.
Of those twenty, they narrowed it down to three: Whisked Away, Cake It Easy, or The Cookie Jar.
Soda pushed for a fourth option that had been placed in the NO pile: Sugar Daddies.
Darry shut that one down immediately. “The goal is for people to take us seriously.”
“Hear me out-”
“No.”
Three jars, three name possibilities, and one new message on the little chalkboard easel. “THESE ARE OUR FINALISTS! VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE THIS WEEK!!”
🍪🍪🍪
Two-Bit hadn’t known where they kept extra jars, but Darry had a stash in the back of the pantry. The usual mason jars, and ones that were much larger. Halfway through the week, he switched out each jar for a bigger one, as they were all getting too full.
By the time Saturday rolled around, there wasn’t a clear winner just by eyeballing it. Each option had a nearly full jar.
Everyone stayed late again, but this time they were all spread out, each in charge of counting the money from a single jar.
After it was all tallied up, Ponyboy frowned. “Aw man, I was really rooting for The Cookie Jar.”
Darry had already run the totals in his head. The voting strategy gave them enough in tips to cover most of the costs for their new sign. It would be simple, and he’d have to paint it himself of course, but he could already see it now: bold blue letters spelling out their new name: Cake It Easy. He had to admit, it had a certain charm to it. He’d have to find a way to thank Two-Bit for the idea later.