He needed money.

He needed to find some money. Working to earn cash was too linear, would take too long. Maybe he could sell T-shirts. Somehow, he was told, if he just signed-up as a “storefront” on the market website, all he had to do was upload his art and bang! the orders would start rolling in. $3000 a month, no cost upfront to him. The market website handles all the shipping and order fulfillment. Nah. He knew a scam when he saw one. Probably it was just a honeypot for his data. He had learned somewhere that it was important to protect the virginity of his data.

He needed to find some money. Apparently he owed $600 per month in student loan payments and they had stopped resetting his past due balance to $0 since his great uncle had left office. He tried to call once to setup a payment plan. There had been an elaborate sob story prepared while he endured the estimated two-week hold time, but he had forgotten it when he hung up after twenty minutes. He had kept seeing the word ’billions’ flying around in the news and was hoping for some kind of clemency. No luck. And now the emails had become more warnings than reminders. Well, they would send some real mail when they were serious. Still, he felt it would be good to get some money, just in case.

The problem was saturation. Too many people hustling now. He had a dream about riding a train into a town of rubes and then getting away with all the cash. That time was long gone. No one even used cash anymore. Maybe he would buy some gold. Or silver, if he had to settle. He needed money to make some money. He needed angel investors for his startup. He would ride the train into town and open a We Buy Gold (and precious metals) - Jewelry! store. All the desperate rubes would come and sell him their hordes. That was the dream.

There had been a shooting - no fatalities - at the train station though, so the passenger train didn’t even stop where he lived. He needed to get out of town, to find a new start. He had to start now. It was never too late. He needed time to think.

A drunk driver had crashed through the private booths at the adult theatre - no fatalities - and it seemed like a ripoff to pay $15 to sit in the cattle yard of the main area. Reconstruction of the private booths was being held up by a fight with the insurance company. He had heard enough. He didn't come here to hear about other people's problems. He needed time to think. Insurance, now there was a ripoff.

Maybe he would go to the casino. They only draw the lottery winners four times a week. He needed money now. The math of roulette was confusing, but it seemed the most fair. Unless there were magnets under the wheel. He looked up how to check for magnets under a roulette wheel at the casino. He saw an ad for a free sample of a THC detox cleanse health drink with new flavors. Probably another honey pot for his data. He decided to wait until Thursday to go to the casino so he could hit up the all-you-can-eat crab leg buffet. And maybe he’d win the lottery before then.

But he needed money now. A guy with a truck is never out of work. There’s only so much you can do with a hatchback though. He checked the free section on the classifieds website for scrap metal listings. All the posts were a couple of days old. Scrap metal doesn’t last that long. Too many people hustling now.

It would be nice to have a farm, one that was paid off. Someplace where he could just live off the land. He would never have to fight with his dog. Unless the dog started acting up. He couldn't believe how much it cost to board dogs now. He wondered, who are all these people paying for doggie daycare? That was another place he saw ‘billions’ flying around. People love to spend money on pets. He almost wished he was a dog.

He needed money.