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Health & Fitness

Got a College Degree, I Think I'll Buy a 7-Eleven Franchise!

I'm Ms. Lexa, and I work at a Baltimore County Public School. Today, I go to the 7-11 across the street from the cheap movies on Belair Road!

7-Eleven. What image does it conjure up in your mind? For me, it's about a bunch of guys hanging around the coffee station at our neighborhood 7-Eleven, replenishing coffee, and exchanging stupid stories with each other and wisecracks with the ladies who run the registers. For Matt Groenig of the Simpsons fame, it must conjure up an image of a middle eastern guy running a 7-Eleven without knowing the cultural tendencies of the American public. 

So, we're allowed to change our perceptions, right? My older son is serving in the military overseas, while his friends back home are doing a variety of different things. His best friend is finishing up at an art school in Philly (they have a lot of them there), another friend is getting a master's degree at Loyola, yet another college friend is flying missions in Iraq via the Air Force, and his friend Arsalan Ansari has just graduated UMBC and opened a 7-Eleven with his younger brother Ayaz Ansari!

Wait, what? You're a college graduate, probably with a degree in international business, or maybe engineering, or something like that and you're going to take a flier on a 7-Eleven? And in a low-traffic location? This is the same guy that we met while both he and my son, Alex, were in sixth grade at Parkville Middle School. The boys lived in Dundalk neighborhoods not far from each other, but far enough so that Arsalan had gone to Berkshire Elementary, and Alex to Sandy Plains. If they missed the bus to school though, my husband and I gave them rides.

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One day we asked Arsalan where he came from. We knew his family wasn't from the area, after all, they had the beautiful non-Baltimore last name of Ansari, and his mother was this lovely delicate woman who wore silk, flowing dresses, and was just exquisite. This is not someone who came from Dundalk. We were expecting an answer like Dubai, Tehran, Pakistan, or something like that. Arsalan's response? A fist pump, and "Detroit, Michigan, baby!" Such a sixth grade boy!

So, Arsalan dreamed up this idea of focusing on Parkville High School as his theme for the grand opening celebration last Tuesday. It would be on the last day of school, he would offer folks coupons for free things in the future, and he would welcome kids with free 12 oz. Slurpees. After all, both he and Ayaz went through Parkville Middle School and Parkville High School magnet programs. They both graduated PHS and went on to UMBC. Ayaz hasn't had the chance to graduate from college yet, but Arsalan graduated this past May, and this is his chance to show what he learned in those business classes! I offered up my younger son as one of those sign waver kids. You know what I mean, standing on the street corner holding up a sign, waving it at people, and handing out fliers advertising the grand opening deals. 

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People came. They got free Slurpees. They shopped a bit, and saw the place for what it was: a family-run clean 7-Eleven, with young men who graduated from a local magnet high school behind the tills, making the stock orders, greeting the customers, training their little sister on running the register, and hiring friends brothers to do the advertising for them. 

Stop by their 7-Eleven when you need something quick. It's clean, spacious, run by Parkville High School grads, and friends of my kids. It's located in the small strip shopping center on Belair Road across from the cheap movies - Belair Movies-6.  7641 Belair Road, Nottingham, MD -

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