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Inside every proud, hardworking American is a lazy bastard who wants to get rich overnight. Personally, job satisfaction and career enhancement don't mean squat to me. What I want is simple: lotsa money. And so when I see those ads in the paper, on the Internet, in magazines, and on matchbooks promising me that I can get rich quick while working at home, well, I get a nagging feeling deep in my wallet.
Am I skeptical of these schemes? Sure. I mean, I don't know anyone who's ever made any money from them¡then again, I don't know anyone who's ever tried. But what's the worst that could possibly happen? I sit around the house in my skivvies, watching Rockford Files reruns while stuffing envelopes with Aryan Nations literature. So I pull in a thousand bucks instead of a million, so what? Far more depressing to slave away at a desk job, sitting on hemorrhoids the size of Cornnuts and telling myself I'm not my father, while some schmuck with the IQ of an abalone is paying for his new 'vette with a fistful of cash he made assembling barbed wire from his bed.
Perhaps you've had similar thoughts. Perhaps you've even gone so far as to cut out one of those ads or jot down a phone number. Most likely your dignity stopped you from actually going the distance. That's why I'm here. I have very little dignity.
Some Assembly Required
An ad in the back of a weekly paper catches my eye: WORK AT HOME. Great Extra Income Idea! Assemble Products For Best Companies!
Intrigued, I order the starter packet for $40.99, a small price to pay to make my decadent dreams come true. I receive a booklet titled "Home Based Income Opportunities", which has pictures of an elderly couple hugging, a family on a picnic, and a woman talking on the phone while holding a baby. I like hugging! I like picnics! I like talking on the phone while holding babies! Home Based Income Opportunities will make me rich and add ol'-fashioned joy to my life.
The booklet is basically a cavalcade of ads for stuff that needs assembling. Stuff like teddy-bear doorknob covers, stuffed lambs, and baby bonnets. Oh, and Dough Darlings. "Assembling" Dough Darlings translates to creating "beautiful, precious" dolls from flour and salt. While these crafts may not actually push the artistic envelope, at least they're putting Americans to work and not sending jobs overseas.
In the end I opt to make Angelic Creations. This entails cranking out "upper-scale country angels," a task considerably more prestigious than producing lower-scale country angels. The photo in the booklet shows something resembling a cute blob of fabric with wings. But the real reason I sign up is that the ad uses the three prettiest words in the English language: No experience required. Yes sir, Angelic Creations will put me on the road to financial freedom.
I send $34.95 to some place in Michigan for more information and a sample angel. A few weeks later, my packet arrives. Inside there's a creepy doll. It's actually a bunch of muslin vaguely resembling a winged voodoo doll holding a moss wreath. The creepy doll has no face. It looks like it might have cost 80¢ to make and would be ideal for dusting. It's my sample angel.
As I dig deeper into the packet, I realize that the Home Based Income Opportunities booklet neglected to mention a few things: For one, this project requires sewing skills. Not only sewing skills but also a sewing machine.
This is the game plan: To construct my own upper-scale country angels, I must purchase the materials directly from the little bastards at the Angelic Creations company for an additional $16. Once I receive the materials, I'll be able to construct five horrific angels, and if my little beauties are up to upper-scale- country-angel standards, I'll receive a check for $25. (If they're rejected, I must pay $3 to have the creepy angels returned to me.) One more teeny-weeny detail: I don't get to assemble as many angels as I want. It's all based on demand. Who would demand a creepy angel? Only Satan himself!
Having already committed several hours and $75.94, I don't want to throw in the towel. I order the materials. A box arrives with "enough muslin to assemble five angels." The booklet says assembling an angel will take 20 minutes. I consult the instructions:
"Step One: Cut off the selvage from the fabric."
OK, I'm already lost. What's selvage? Hoping it isn't important, I move on.
"Step Two: Put batting into square of muslin."
What the hell is batting!?!
To make matters worse, the instructions keep referring to the angel as "her". This bugs the hell out of me. My glue is spilling everywhere. The arms fall off when I touch them. I improvise with a stapler to keep things in place; but even 36 staples don't help the little flowers stay put. And there's braiding involved. How in God's name do you braid? The muslin is fraying. The moss is falling off. My angel looks as if "she" spent the night with the Hells Angels.
Three hours later, I finish assembling my first creepy angel. If they accept it-which is highly doubtful-I will have made something like 90¢ an hour. What's more, I've already used up three quarters of the material they sent me. At least what's left will come in handy for wiping the mess off my table. I send my angel back to the Angelic Creations home office with a note saying, "Dear Cheap Angelic Bastards, Your dolls are no better than lower-scale country angels. I quit!"
Going Postal
Every time I open my E-mail, I get a dozen offers to help me make money. Some folks see these as annoying spam, but I see them for what they really are: once-in-a-lifetime entrepreneurial opportunities.
One day I receive an E-mail from a guy who claims he made $868,439 by sending a chain letter to 200 people. Although he was earning a good living as a lawyer, since he began sending those letters he's retired from his practice and spends his days playing golf. That, my friend, is the life I'm looking for.
Accompanying his E-mail is a list with seven names and snail-mail addresses. If I want to cash in, I'm to send $1 to each person on the list. My name moves to the seventh position and the first name is removed. I then copy the E-mail and send it out. Sure, it's a pyramid scheme, but that doesn't mean I can't become as disgustingly rich as the lawyer. This is ridiculously easy-no muslin! no braiding!-and I vow to be the best chain-letter writer ever. I contact a bulk E-mail company, also advertised via E-mail, and pay $89 to have it E-mail my letter to 150,000 people.
A week later I receive a note from one of the people to whom I sent a buck: "Thank you for the dollar, please follow exactly as the letter tells you to do, IT REALLY WORKS¡it will be slow at the beginning, but the post office will call for you to pick up the mail, because it is a lot¡Thank you, GOD BLESS."
From the 150,000 E-mails I send, I need only 96 responses-a return rate of less than 1 percent-to break even. I relax and wait for the post office to call.
Strangely, the call doesn't come. Weeks go by, and still nothing. I do receive a letter from Pensacola, Florida. It's written in grandma handwriting and signed by a Mrs. Hardy; stuffed inside is a $1 bill. That's all I get. From 150,000 E-mails, exactly one response.
The Envelope, Please
Earn $2,500 weekly or more stuffing envelopes at home!!! Honest Homeworkers urgently needed.
Stuffing envelopes-hell, how hard can it be? I've done it all my life.
There's gotta be some catch, some reason why the money's so good. Maybe there's a high risk of paper cuts.
It's a chance I'm willing to take, in part because my competition-other envelope stuffers-must be dumber than dirt. The ad reads, When the check arrives each week, you can cash it and do whatever you want with the money, pay bills, make your car payments, go shopping, or even take a vacation. The money is yours to spend any way you want. So the target audience is people who not only have trouble paying their bills but also need guidance on how to spend money?
A few weeks after I sign on, I get a small packet from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Fort Lauderdale is to envelope stuffing what Ohio is to serial killers. Inside the packet there's an official diploma that reads CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION. I'm supposed to mount this for job pride. But¡what's this? There's also a stack of 20 yellow fliers that, apparently, they want me to post around town. The fliers read:
Attention!! work-at-home!!!
Are you tired of living from paycheck to paycheck?
Are you interested in Working At Home? In these financially stressful times, everybody is looking for a way to change their lives for the better. We can show you how!!!
Hold on, Bubba! My job is envelope stuffer, and now I'm also supposed to gallivant around town posting these stupid fliers, too? No one said a goddamned thing about fliers! I should be licking and sealing, not helping other people change their lives for the better.
Here's the deal: Those who want to change their lives for the better are to send a self-addressed stamped envelope to me. Once the hordes of work-at-home enthusiasts bombard my mailbox with inquiries, my job is to stuff their envelopes with blue fliers advertising a $39 directory called "Discovering Financial Freedom At Home" that contains lucrative opportunities such as¡stuffing envelopes.
So I place the 20 yellow fliers on 20 bulletin boards. The company suggests I also tack up my fliers at gas stations, bowling alleys, car washes, motels, and RV campsites. I guess these are where potential envelope stuffers congregate.
After one month of posting fliers, I'm still $2,496 short of my projected earnings. I receive only two self-addressed stamped envelopes. (This will earn me a $4 paycheck.) One is from a man named Bazil Asamid. He encloses a note that says: "I'm interested in working. Please if you help me. I need to work it fast please." What if this poor desperate man spends his last $39 on a list of sleaze merchants who'll only ask him for another $39 for the opportunity to sew creepy angels?
I write a note to Bazil on the back of the flier: "Dear Bazil, Do not send $39. This is an idiotic scam! I repeat: Bazil, DO NOT SEND $39!! If you do, they'll send you back to whatever country you came from."
Me and My Stapler
The wise men who want to shower me with money-$2500 a week!-to staple booklets at home have a suggestion for my working environment. "We suggest you select a table to be used for stapling booklets. Your kitchen table will be perfect for this kind of work when you're not using it for dining." I see their point: A staple in your meat loaf can ruin your breakfast.
From our experience you can probably staple an average of 50 booklets in two hours. That is $250 to $750 for two hours work! These booklet stapling jobs are very important to our publishing company¡and that's why we are giving you the opportunity to earn such a high rate of pay. Plus, the company promises to supply a free stapler!
Because it can't handle all the stapling at its office, the company farms the work out. I'd better hurry, because this is a "limited opportunity."means as soon as they get enough people to staple their booklets, they'll stop recruiting and I'll be shit out of luck. But that's not all: If I sign up now, I'll also get $200 worth of groceries or a $20 gift just for participating!
Stapling booklets turns out to be the dodgiest scam in a sea of dodgy scams. For starters, I'm encouraged to buy a list of "opportunity seekers" from the company (2,000 names for $150). After I buy the names, I'm to stuff a letter (provided by the company) into an envelope, stick on a mailing label (provided by the company), and send one to every name on the mailing list. The letters are advertisements for a bunch of crappy reports: "How to Get Big Dollars in Your Mailbox Everyday," "How to Reorganize Your Time to Accommodate a Home-Based Business," and others.
Things get more suspicious by the minute. For starters, my $20 gift turns out to beÉthe crappy reports! Each report is three to six pages long, poorly photocopied, and barely readable. When an order comes in, I'm supposed to photocopy the barely readable report, then-and this is what I've been waiting forÑstaple the reports together!
The cost of four reports is $47, plus a $3 shipping charge. The copying costs about $4, so theoretically I can make a $43 profit for selling some sap a bunch of unreadable photocopies that explain how to start a lucrative home-stapling business.
One report, "How to Reorganize Your Time to Accommodate a Home-Based Business," contains such pearls of wisdom as "You may have to give up the time you waste in your local pub or a few television programs you watch, but it will be worth it in the long run!" This vital information is more valuable than gold bullion.
Along with the crappy reports, they manage to include the list of names I purchased for $150: 2,000 addresses of people in New Mexico. People in New Mexico must really love to staple.
It was probably an honest oversight, but the addresses come on a computer printout rather than on easy-to-peel mailing labels. Great, in addition to buying stamps ($660) and envelopes ($285.98), I also have to fork over the cost of labels ($96.80).
The stupid bastards forgot another minor detail. They didn't include the actual sales letter I need to send. Classic! I'm left with a nice list of trailer homes in New Mexico. But here's the killer: My free stapler is nowhere to be found. How am I supposed to make money stapling booklets when the damned complimentary stapler isn't included?
I send the company a sales letter of my own: "I want my stapler, motherfucker! I WANT MY MOTHERFUCKING STAPLER NOW!!!!!"
The Envelope, Please.Part DeuxAt this point the words staple booklets at home are enough to make me froth at the mouth. I'm on the verge of losing my faith in the whole get-rich-quick system. But surely these offers can't all be scams. Surely there's one legit moneymaker in the bunch. That's why I send $49 and return to stuffing envelopes, which did provide me with the largest payout, meager though it was ($4). This opportunity-Mailing Special Letters!-will help me earn $2,900 weekly.
My introduction packet arrives. I open it slowly. The special letters IÕll be mailing are to recruit people for¡ STAPLING BOOKLETS AT HOME!! I feel slightly nauseous. The room's spinning. I'm feeding the insatiable beast of the get-rich-quick scheme. This whole thing is a bastardized, incestuous, fraudulent family of crap! None of these scams really sell anything. They're all part of an elaborate pyramid scheme in which the people at the top make money and every poor dreamer looking for a way out of the nine-to-five prison gets pissed on. Worse, I'm stuffing the same letter that originally hooked me into the book-stapling scheme: "In order to reach a market, we use a network of home workers in different states to staple our booklets at home" Yeah, well, I say bull caca. I say enough!
My Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
Well, I didn't get rich, at least not yet. But I've taken all the tricks I've learned and devised my own get-rich scam, which I'll use to seek revenge on the crap hounds who stole my money and wasted my time:
Earn $2,900 a week driving your car!
Yes, we'll pay you $2,900 a week and up simply for driving your car! All you need to do is sit in your car, drive it down the street, and run over any of the bastards who fleece people with get-rich-quick schemes! It's easy: The more bastards you run over, the more money you make! Be your own boss, set your own hours, and earn $20 for every bastard you run over! If you run over 10 bastards¡you get $200
If you run over 35 bastards¡you get $700
If you run over 500 bastards¡you get $10,000
It's up to you how many bastards you run over. In these financially stressful times everybody is looking for a way to change their lives for the better. We can show you how simply by driving your car! This revolutionary new moneymaking strategy can be yours for $39.95. The demand for running over bastards is so great that we are unable to fulfill all the requests. That's why we're recruiting drivers in your area. Complete money-back guarantee after running over 25 bastards! Act fast. This offer won't last long!
And neither, I hope, will the bastards.
