Excerpt from New York Times op-ed by my new favorite writer, Joshuah Bearman:

I’m not sure how I came up with this idea, but what I told my classmates was this: my mom is an expert baker, and at the end of the year she always bakes this incredible cake, the best cake ever, for me and my best friends at school. It’s coming, this wonderful cake. Can you picture it in your mind? It will be a great day. But in the meantime, I said, I will let you in on this special opportunity! If you give me, say, your Cheetos now, you can stake a claim on this fantastic pending cake. Like a deposit. One Hostess cupcake equals one share.

Just like that, I became a market maker, peddling delicious cake futures.