Decemburrrr

This morning I fired off the article I worked on all last week. And all day Austin had the most sleep-inducing weather: cold drizzle, heavy clouds, just enough wind to send the chill straight to your bones. That's Grade A movie-watching weather, right there. I wanted to reward myself by declaring it Netflix Monday. Alas, there are jobs to look for and other freelancer work to catch up on.

I think it would be much easier to make money if I had slightly more flexible ethics. Here are some things I think I could be really good at:

Financial Domination
Never heard of it? Me neither, until I read this. I couldn't do other sex work, just because of the germies and Ew. But I think I could tell somebody to give me all their money for the purpose of their pleasure and enjoyment. I could probably learn to use Excel to give my act some 'accounting' panache.

Psychic Readings
When I was little, I convinced the other kids I knew how to read just by picking up story books and making it up as I went. Then, years later, I went to theater camp and was pretty much unbeatable at improv games. My journo experience has honed my people skills, usually I'm okay at getting folks to open up. Therefore, I think I could build relationships with distraught people and fill them with baseless hope thanks to my fanciful predictions. And there is plenty of money to be made there.

Distressed Princess 
This is not just a Nigerian email thing, it happens in real life too. When I was interning at The Seattle Times, I did a story on people who fell for it. They were approached in a Costco parking lot by a man and a woman (the princess) from (insert exotic country) who had improbable money/bank problems and needed to temporarily hold millions in the victim's account. As a show of "trust" the victim went to the bank and took out $30,000. The princess and her dude friend (man servant? eunuch?) told him they were going to drive around the block with it and naturally they never came back. [The bank manager pleaded with the victim not to take out his money.] Once the story ran, I got a couple phone calls from other victims - presumably people who'd been too embarrassed or despondent to report to the police.

My understanding is this is a thing elderly people fall for. I leave a pretty good impression on old people. Plus, I would get to wear princess dresses. Grannies would totally believe me and give me their life savings.

Alas, all of these options are unconscionable and/or criminal. Maybe I could open a tarot reading social venture, where 10% of proceeds went to helping economically disadvantaged women open their own tarot businesses. Now who can argue with a little female empowerment?