easy money

One of my favorite money making activities is checking the little coin slot of public telephones. This cash cow idea came to me years ago when I was just a little kid, and is still considered by leading economic experts (well, okay, just by me) to be a excellent source of income.

In 32 years, I've earned about $1.45 through my payphone payouts, and while this only averages out to 4.5 cents a year, you need to take into consideration that this is all tax free...and that, due to inflation, those dimes that I found back in the seventies are probably worth about 15 cents today, so my original figure is artificially low.

That little slot is a verifiable treasure chest. And upon feeling a cold, metallic little coin once your finger slips into that slot, the whole day has been made. Much like winning the lottery without the money reducing guilt of actually buying a ticket first. Yes, the invention of the payphone coin slot is the true American dream, that of easy money.

But lately paranoia has been setting in, cramping my free money payout. I'm not sure where this paranoia and uneasiness stemmed from. Blame it on the television show 24 if you want, with their conspiracies to nuke America, assassinate the President and unleash some new, horrific biological warfare all in the same day. Or you can blame it on product tampering... cyanide in your Tylenol gel caps, or arsenic in a tub of Dannon's yogurt. Maybe it's just a germ-phobia thing, which has given us antibacterial wipes, soaps, sprays, and lotions.

Whatever the case, I find that I rarely check coin slots anymore. And while some may think that the reason behind this is that I've 'matured', the truth is that I'm worried that someone may have stuck a rusty hyp0dermic needle in the slot...just waiting for the first finger to slip in there and get pricked, and end up with Aids, or an unwanted heroin addiction, or some other type of excruciating, life ending thing.

Still, though, it's very tempting to check. I mean, we're talking about a whole shiny quarter here.