Confessions of a grade school con artist

( Oh Charlotte, you love these stories )

I was young...it was the summer of 2nd grade...and I had two best friends in the neighborhood I lived in, their names were Angie and Portia, yes Portia.. we swam at the pool all summer and played at each other's houses.. we traded dolls,and well here's the story....
Micheal Jackson came out with we are the world and they were showing an old show of all the actors and singers who sang on the album and watched it at my house, Portia and I, and then we were told to go out and play so we did, but outside we had nothing to play...and not to say that it was all Portia's idea, but Angie was gone that weekend and back then I can't remember if I was a follower or a leader, but Portia said we should collect some money for the kids in Africa, and I thought that was a dumb idea because we had no way to send it to Africa, and Portia said,
" Michelle, we're two little black girls, we could be starving kids from Africa." ( okay, she might not have worded it like that for sure, but I can't remember what she said for sure..)
What I do remember is that ten minutes later, I was holding a bucket as she rang the neighbors door bells and saying,
" Hi, I'm Michelle and this is Portia and we are raising money for the we are the world for our school, would you like to help starving children in Africa?"
and the bucket got filled...
There was a mom and pop pizza place not far out of our neighborhood and we could walk to it without getting into trouble, because we weren't crossing busy streets or anything.... a medium cheese pizza and a 2 liter of soda would cost us around seven dollars and some change.. after ten minutes of coning and checking with the pizza man, we were a few dollars short, so we took our lying seven year old behinds back out into the neighborhood and knocked on a few more doors...
Cheese was the only topping we could agree on, and we took our pizza behind Portia's house and ate a slice each...My mother yelled for me to come in after I had only had a slice and a sip of soda, and Portia's mom's boyfriend had come home at the same time.. we threw the pizza away and I went home.
I remember at some time feeling a bit sorry that we weren't giving the money to the we are the world, but my seven year mind, and now my adult mind agree.. IT WAS SUMMER, those people believed it was for a school project IN THE SUMMER, who does school in the summer.....