How I Lost Ten Times more than a Million Dollars

Dear Ms. Paula,
Hi! I finished a book called the Toothpaste millionaire. It's about a boy who starts a business by selling toothpaste! And he makes ten times more than a million dollars. That's a lot of money!!!! He even gets to buy a machine & hire people!!!! Man I wish I had all that money. Don't you? Love, Luke

Hi Luke,
When I was your age, I invented beef flavored toothpaste for dogs. My dog had really bad breath! If I had known how to start a business back then, maybe I'd have ten times more than a million dollars!
Ms. Paula

The Beef Flavored Toothpaste for Dogs Story

Well, my first step was to figure out what goes into regular toothpaste. Let me tell you that was harder than you would think. First, I tried to read the ingredients on the tube in our house. No good, it was like trying to read Chinese. And let me tell you, we only had about 3 different types of toothpaste back then, not the 50 different brands you can get today.

Second, there was no internet back then. Heck, people didn't even have computers in their houses (can you believe that? Ask your Dad). I actually had to GO to the library. Back then kids my age (about 10 years old) were allowed to ride their bikes pretty far away. So I rode my bike to the library about 2 miles away inside the mall (Yes, we had malls back then). I did this quite a bit anyway because I've always loved to read and the library had bean bag chairs I could curl up and read in. Then I had to search the "card file index" for something on toothpaste because libraries didn't have computers back then to look up books, just cards with information on them.

I found out that basically toothpaste had some kind of abrasive to scrub the teeth (like baking soda), soap to make it foamy (YUCK!), sugar to make the soap taste better, and they had just started adding fluoride to stop cavities.

I figured, "hey, my dog doesn't need soap or sugar and I wasn't too concerned about his cavities." So I tried straight baking soda with a little water to make a paste and tried to brush his teeth. JUMP BACK, because he didn't like the flavor much. So I thought to myself, "What do dogs like?" BEEF!! So I asked my mom for some beef flavored bouillon cubes (what you make soup broth with). I crumpled them up with the baking soda, added water to make a paste and tried again. Success, my dog loved it. The only problem was he still had beefy breath.

That's my story! And I still think it would have made ten times more than a million dollars too!