How to Make Lots of Money

Some Career Strategies for Greedy People!

How to Make Lots of Money!!!

I need to figure out how to make lots of money . . . without having to work very hard.

If I had to sum up my attitude towards work with a single hashtag, it would be “#RESIST!”

Work Is a Bad Way to Make Money

I know there’s a Puritan work ethic baked into American culture, where work for work’s sake is seen as a noble, character-building enterprise. However, the Puritans who developed this philosophy seem to have missed the part in the Bible about work being a curse for Man’s disobedience. It’s a strange religious perspective these Puritan-types have: “Hey, you need to build character: go get cursed by God! Just revel in that curse and make it your identity and look down on anyone who is less cursed than you!”

Maybe these same Puritan-types also take delight in the other curses God doled out to Adam and Eve when he kicked them out of Eden. Maybe they deny women epidurals during childbirth, because God cursed womenkind with labor pains by giving babies abnormally large heads (compared to other animals) that get painfully stuck in the birth canal. Maybe at some Baptist hospitals the OBGYNs tell their patients, “Look here, you godless wench, you need to feel these labor pains! No anesthetic for you! Embrace the suck! It builds character!”

That’s how I look at work: a curse that is best avoided. Or that may just be me rationalizing my laziness as some kind of noble spiritual principle — Hey, that’s one type of work I don’t mind doing: inventing elaborate justifications for being lazy and doing what the hell I want to do!

Being a Professional Student Sounds Nice . . . at First

I remember hearing the term “professional student,” and I used to wonder where I could get a job like that. I like the idea of getting paid to doodle on scratch paper while pretending to listen to some blowhard ramble on and on about this or that theory. Unfortunately, being a professional student is the only profession I'm aware of where the longer you work, the more money you lose; and the whole system of higher education in America resembles a giant government-backed pyramid scheme. I don't mind pyramid schemes, so long as I'm near the top. Unfortunately, students tend to be near the bottom of that pyramid. [I'll write more on this theme in another post.] Bottom line, being a professional student is a no go.

The Main Purpose of Work Is Making Money

The main purpose of having a job is to make money, so logically, the best job should be counterfeiting! Just cut to the chase and make that money!

Unfortunately, the government has made that illegal: only the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are allowed to counterfeit money in the United States.

[You can read my well-reasoned argument that the Fed and the Treasury are greater miracle workers than Jesus near the end of the essay I wrote about Easter Sunday and Taxation Monday]

A Great Career for Making Money: Con Artistry!

After careful consideration of my career options, I have decided to become a con artist. This seems like a good line of work. You can be your own boss, set your own schedule, work anywhere in the world, and the profits can be enormous.

As the great 20-century poet and political philosopher Grandmaster Flash once said in his epic poem The Message, “It’s all about money, ain’t a damn thing funny! You got to have a con in this land of milk and honey!”

I’ve come up with a few ideas for con artistry. Dear reader, you can be part of my marketing focus group. We all know stupid people. Think about the idiots you know, and tell me if you think they would be likely to buy any of these products or services.

As P T Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Unfortunately, many of them vote. But fortunately for my purposes, many of them also have money to spend, and as a wise man once said, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Con Artistry Idea #1: a Fuel Additive

Here’s my first idea: a fuel additive that will help your car get up to 500 miles per gallon! Talk about a way to improve your ESG score! Maybe I can even get Greta Thunberg to be in advertisements for it. “Driving a car with bad gas-mileage? How dare you!!!”

What? You doubt that a fuel additive could possibly improve your fuel economy to 500 miles per gallon? Believe it or not, it’s true. I worked out the math on a piece of a beverage napkin at a seedy dive bar the other night. The napkin got a little wet and smeared the ink a bit, but I’m pretty sure the answer is 500 mpg. Anyway, with gas prices rising astronomically, this should be a big seller.

Of course, there are terms and conditions that the customer (a.k.a., sucker) has to agree to when they buy the product. Lots of terms and conditions. About 750 pages of them in very small print. And on page 667, it clearly states that in order to get 500 miles to the gallon, you must be going downhill, with the care in neutral, for all 500 miles.

Terms and conditions are a con artist’s best friend, by the way. People have been trained just to click “agree” whenever they make a purchase, so nobody actually reads what they're agreeing to. Even if you tried to read the terms and conditions, most of the times they comprise countless pages of intentionally vague and confusing legalese, which can usually be translated into plain English with the simple phrase, “You’re screwed!”

Here’s where the terms and conditions come in with my fuel additive: if anyone buys it and for some reason it actually makes their gas mileage worse, then it’s their fault, not mine. No refunds.

“Oh, you didn’t get 500 miles to the gallon? Well, did you go uphill at all? Or drive on a level surface? Or have the care in “drive” instead of “neutral?” See! It’s your own damn fault. No refund for you!”

So that’s my first idea: a fuel additive that promises to help you get up to 500 miles to the gallon. What’s in it? Whatever liquids I can find in my garage: gas, oil, water, you name it. And don’t worry, on page 703 of the terms and conditions, I expressly disclaim any and all liability for engine damage.

So what do you think? Will the stupid people you know jump at the chance to buy this fuel additive in bulk? No? Well, if you don’t think the fuel additive is a winner, I got a couple more ideas.

Con Artistry Idea #2: Selling a Home-Security Service

And now for my second idea: a home-security service. My associates and I will burglar proof your home for the one-time low price of just $500. That’s a deal next to a steal! Literally!

Here’s how it works: my associates and I will make it impossible for anyone to burglarize your home . . . because we will burglarize it first and take everything of any possible value. And we will remove all the exterior doors from their hinges. And break all the windows. This way, no one could “break and enter” your home, because there will be nothing left to break; and they won’t be able to steal anything, because there will be nothing left to steal.

Of course, there will be many pages of terms and conditions that our customers (a.k.a., shmucks) will have to agree to (hopefully without reading them) when they buy this service. For example, the customer will agree not to repair any of the doors or windows we break or replace any of the items we steal. If you fix your doors and windows and then go out and buy new shit, it'll be your own damn fault if someone then breaks into your home and takes it.

Okay, so what do you think? Will the morons you know sign up for my burglar-proofing service? No, you don’t think so?

Okay, not to worry, my third and final idea is the best: a weight-loss program called the “no-shit diet” (you’ll see why it’s called the no-shit diet in a minute).

Con Artistry Idea #3: the No-Shit Diet

I have developed a highly effective diet called the “No-Shit Diet.” President Biden may have announced that food shortages are coming — I suppose that’s the next step in “building back better” — but for now, there are a lot of fat people.

My target market for the “No-Shit Diet” is stupid fat people. Note: I’m not trying to imply that fat people are stupid; with food shortages looming, maybe it makes sense to store up some extra fat. But I know that there are a lot of stupid people out there — like the great George Carlin once said, “Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize, half of them are even dumber than that!” — and a large number of them are fat.

My soon-to-be patented and trademarked “No-Shit Diet” will be a big hit with stupid fat people. This is an easy diet that requires no willpower, no exercise, no health food, none of that, yet it is guaranteed to make you lose weight.

Side note: I actually had the idea for the “No-Shit Diet” a couple years ago when I was on Tim Ferriss’s “Slow-Carb Diet” [unlike my “No-Shit Diet,” the Slow-Carb Diet is totally legit — I lost a bunch of weight doing a lazy-man’s half-assed version of it; it really works]. I was weighing myself each week and tracking my progress, and one day, after weighing myself, I took a dump. I wondered how much I weighed sans feces, so I hopped on the scale again and found I was three pounds lighter. I guess I had been really full of shit that day! Anyway, it was a “Eureka!” moment for me, and the idea for the “No-Shit Diet” was born.

Basically, it’s a beautifully simple, four-step process, involving a month’s supply of magic diet pills that I will provide for the incredibly low price of just $99. Just take the pills and repeat the four easy steps until you have lost the desired weight.

Here’s how the No-Shit Diet works:

1. Step one: Take one magic diet pill (each pill contains a very powerful laxative);

2. Step two: Eat nothing but shitty food. By “shitty food,” I mean nasty fast-food that is basically already shit — stuff like Taco Bell and Krystal’s (if you’re in the South) or White Castle (if you’re in the North). The advantage of eating shitty food is that your body doesn’t have to do much to digest it, so within just minutes of eating, it’s already on its way to the colon.

3. Step three: Find a toilet. Quickly. And stay within arm’s reach of it. This step is extremely important. The No-Shit Diet has been linked to a condition that medical professionals refer to as “having a shit fit” — a.k.a., extreme dysentery.

4. Step four (and this is the payoff): Watch the pounds drop off of — or rather out of — your body!

And that’s it! Four easy steps, which you can simply repeat until you have lost the desired weight!

As always, terms and conditions apply. With the No-Shit Diet, the terms and conditions read like the warnings at the end of every advertisement for new prescription drugs, and I expressly disclaim any and all liability for side effects requiring hospitalization or resulting in death. I guarantee only that you will lose weight, not that you will survive. I personally guarantee that if anyone does pass away after starting the No-Shit Diet, his corpse will weigh less than he did when he started the diet.

How Do My Con-Artistry Ideas Sound?

So having heard my three brilliant ideas for a con artistry business, what do you think? Do any of these products or services sound like something the idiots you know would buy? Let me know your thoughts and ideas. I’m accepting applications for franchisees and affiliates (terms and conditions will obviously apply), if anyone is interested.

If you enjoyed reading this and found it somewhat funny, feel free to share it, and don’t forget to subscribe to Tilting at Windmills so that you don’t miss any future fun!

If you’re a dog person, you may like this essay about whether dogs are truly “Man’s best friend:”

Man's Best Friend?

Or if you prefer cats to dogs, you may enjoy this essay about why cats knead your belly:

Funny Feline Behavior

And if you’d like to hear more about my con artistry business, as well as some of my other crazy ideas, check out the episode embedded below (via Spotify) of The Crazy Comedy, Humor & Satire Podcast:

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