Student Suspended From School After Selling ‘Squirts’ of Hand Sanitizer to Classmates

(TMU) — An enterprising young teenager in the United Kingdom was suspended from school for a day after selling “squirts” of hand sanitizer to his fellow classmates.

The boy, a student at Dixons Unity Academy in Leeds, has been praised by netizens for his efforts to flip the precious liquid for a few quid as hysteria over the coronavirus continues to grip the world.

In a post to Facebook that has since gone viral, the boy’s mother Jenny Tompkins noted that the “little turd” had been sent home for his entrepreneurial exploits. She wrote:

“Well the little turd has just been expelled from school for the day after been caught charging students 50p a squirt for hand sanitiser to protect themselfs [sic] from the bloody corona virus!!”

“Very hard to discipline this behaviour when his dad phones him from work to call him a fucking legend,” Tompkins added.

The post, which has already been shared nearly 200 thousand times since it was shared on Wednesday, has been inundated with comments praising the lad.

One user commented:

“Why are the school complaining, he’s thinking outside the box and offering something useful better than him selling drugs!”

While another wrote:

“Best thing I’ve read all day by far. Chin up lass, you’ve raised an entrepreneur.”

In total, the young boy raised approximately £9—or a little over $11 USD—after selling the squirts for roughly 64 cents each.

According to his mother, he bought some Doritos with his earnings and plans to buy a kebab with the rest of his cash.

While the boy’s attempts to seize the opportunity in the crisis have been hailed by some social media users and publicized by the world press, there have also been unscrupulous attempts at price-gouging consumers gripped by fear of the novel virus.

On Tuesday, the Japanese government announced that it would make the reselling of masks a crime punishable by a one-year prison term or ¥1 million ($9,800) fine, or both.

The move comes after a provincial lawmaker was exposed to have made ¥8.9 million ($85,000) by selling packets of 2,000 face masks online in auctions for ¥30,000 to ¥170,000 each.

Last Friday, e-commerce giant eBay announced that it would ban U.S. sales listings of hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and N95 and N100 masks to halt a surge in price-gouging slamming consumers who are desperate to ensure that they and their families are protected from the viral outbreak. The move came after the prices of critical supplies skyrocketed on online platforms, potentially violating price-gouging laws in some U.S. states.

However, a number of disinfectant products, gas masks, respirator masks, and assorted disposable masks are still available on eBay.

By Elias Marat | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com