Thursday, July 29, 2010

Dumb Trick #1034

I'm a big fan of dumb human tricks and world record holders. And, although I realize it is not normal behavior, I try my best to partake in such activities. For instance, eating an 8lb watermelon in an hour, lifting my body using just my thumbs, pulling a car with my hair, and now this. This is me drinking a bottle of water in 2 seconds. I'm still about a half a second off of the world record though.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

How to Make 80K a Year with only a High School Diploma

So, how can you make $80,000 a year straight out of high school? Cutting Grass? No. Working at McDonald's? Nope. Doing one of those work at home things? Nope not that either. Do you give up? The answer is sell drugs.

I was talking to a guy today, who for obvious reasons, will remain nameless. (Ok, ok, the real reason is I can't remember his name.) I'm not really sure how the subject came up but he decided to tell me how he, for many years, made a very lucrative living. Now, I enjoy being self employed. I'm not a big fan of having my time dictated to me by a boss. This guy, however, really didn't like having a boss. In fact, the only boss he ever had he punched in the face. Needless to say he lost that job. And thus began his career of being self employed. Now, he didn't have any benefits, unless you include free room and board that he got during his 4 year stint in prison, but never the less he did pretty well for himself. In fact, before he made a career shift, he was pulling in $300,000 a year.

"Look at these people. They work their a**s off just to make a living. Some of them are working just to pay their mortgage and will still lose their houses. Before I let that happen I would just go get a brick and make more money than these suckers make in a year. I won my house, cars, motorcycle. I'm not rich but I got everything I want. S**t, or I would just rob some place. You don't want to rob a bank though. They don't carry enough cash. What you want to do is rob a liquor store."

Now granted, most of you have not had a conversation like this before. We went from dealing drugs to knocking over liquor stores in a 3 minute conversation. And strangely, this all seemed lie a perfectly normal conversation to me. You see, everyone has at some time had some form of this conversation and that is, "What would you do for money?" Would you sell drugs? Would your rob a liquor store? Would you cheat on your taxes? Would you work 60 hours a week and not spend time with your family? Where do you draw the line?

Friday, July 23, 2010

Picking Up a Prostitute

When I get together with my family we talk, we talk a lot. And that is why I was leaving their house at 1am this morning. As I started to pull out of the driveway I could see a lady who had been walking down the street stop, turn, and wait. She was waiting for me, I just knew it. She either wanted money, a cigarette or a ride, or even more likely, all three. For a moment I considered going back inside the house and waiting for her to leave but then decided that that would be silly. Sure enough, as soon as I reached the end of the driveway she asked for a ride soon followed a request for a cigarette and three bucks. "How far?" I asked, "Just a few miles to Reading," she replied. I could smell her body spray from out the window.

"Yea, sure," I said, clearing my front seat of all the junk. She was sweating profusely like she had been doing some, um, hard work. That also explained the body spray. The overpowering smell filled my lungs and it was hard to breath. Her directions were a bit incomplete and we ended up sitting in a dark driveway. I couldn't help but to think that this would be a very inconvenient time to get robbed considering the fact that I had $600 cash in my back pocket from an eBay sale the day before.

She asked to use my phone so I handed it to her. She started every call by typing in *67 to keep them anonymous. The first few times she got no one. On the third try she had a conversation that went something like, "Do you have anyone for me on 9? Yea, I'm over hear on Reading. Ok." This is when I started to really realize the occupation of my passenger. I could only assume that she was calling her pimp. I asked for my phone back and she asked me to delete the numbers. I did and she asked to make one more call, to her mom. Yea, uh huh, her mom. I said ok but make it fast. After two more calls with no answers I revoked her phone privileges. She asked me if I had deleted the numbers and I assured her I would later.

"Ok, you can drop me off up the street." I was happy to be leaving that dark driveway. The visions of being knifed slowly left my head. I had only pulled in there because I had thought she was getting out. Up the street turned out to be a cheap motel. And mind you, she didn't want to be dropped off in front of the motel. She wanted to be dropped off in back of the motel. Ok, a little further, nope, she laughed nervously, a little further, not here, a little further. She was starting to get on my nerves. Finally we were at the exact right spot and she said thank you and proceeded to walk to, um, work I suppose. So, I guess you could say that last night, one of the Children's Pastors from the Vineyard Westside picked up a prostitute. And I guess that would technically be an accurate statement. However, if you should choose to say that please feel free to share the rest of the story just as I have shared it with you.