Back when I was much younger, I fancied myself quite the entrepreneur. I devised many ideas and thought they were my tickets to untold wealth. My first scheme came about when I heard that you could turn in cans and get money for it. For weeks, maybe months I searched and saved, filling bag after bag to the brim with discarded cans. When I finally thought I had enough, my dad took me to the place and I sat in the back with my bags, dreaming up all of the toys and games I was going to buy. When we arrived at the place, I eagerly hopped out and unloaded the van’s bounty of aluminum. I think I got maybe three dollars for everything. What a ripoff! I remember being so angry and I think promptly stopped recycling because of that. So, sorry about that, Al Gore.
Sometime later, after a trip to Putt Putt and the arcade afterwards, I noticed the great prizes you could win after accumulating many tickets from games of chance and/or dumb luck, like Skee Ball, or that one where you drop your token in onto the mass of coins and hope that they tip over into the hole and come out, or something. I never understood that one so I never bothered. I figured, “hey, these tickets are worthless on their own, but if I get good enough at these games, I can get enough tickets to cash them in for great prizes, then I will sell those for real money!” There were many fatal flaws with this plan. For one thing, I wasn’t any good at these games. Another, it was like 20 tickets for a piece of old gum. I never came close to the 450,000 needed for that sweet mini-stereo.
Now I am working on my “Get Rich Very Slowly” scheme, which entails exchanging programming work for a monthly paycheck at reasonable rates of pay. It’s not going as fast as I would like.