Nov 4, 2026–As a younger, hungrier version of myself, I toyed with many get-rich-quicker-than-working-by-the-hour schemes. After all, we were brought up in the days when the backs of magazines were filled with too-good-to-be-true offers. Who doesn’t remember X-Ray Specs, Giant Weather Balloons, and the Granddaddy of Devious Marketing–Sea Monkeys?
Alas, those who sent in twenty-five cents in stamps or coins learned that the Specs were feathers sandwiched between two sheets of plastic, the balloons were just balloons, and Sea Monkeys were dried brine shrimp.
Yet we continued to dream. I remember ordering a book that promised it was filled with 1000 magic tricks. Turns out it was a catalog, filled with 1000 tricks that you had to order and pay for. It was then I began learning not to trust promises in the back pages of pulp magazines.
When I got into the advertising business, I learned those same come-ons persisted, only in more sophisticated forms. One client sold “quick and easy pooper-scoopers,” that were simply small paper bags with a cardboard edge for scooping up dog doo-doo. Another sold “home security systems” that were tin cans with a blinking red LED on one end, that you placed in your windows. They weren’t motion detectors, or alarms, or connected to anything but a 9-volt battery. The blinking red light was supposed to be enough to frighten home invaders.
I admit I toyed with ideas to have my mailbox “filled with envelopes stuffed with cash.” One friend’s scheme was to announce a poetry contest, where for a nominal fee, writers could submit their poems for possible inclusion in a book. Of course every poem was a “winner.” The person simply printed them up at Kinko’s to make a book, which entrants could buy for a nominal fee. Brilliant, really, charging wannabe writers twice for something they created.
I actually had a similar idea that cut out the Kinko’s guy. They say the easiest person to con is someone who is trying to con someone else. So why not sell a list of addresses of people “proven to respond to mail order pitches” to people trying to sell something via mail order? You’ve already figured out I would just compile the names and addresses of people ordering the list, and send it back out to everyone. I still think it was a viable idea, but I never had the chutzpah to actually do it.
I moved on to other ideas. One was designing a bookshelf consisting of boards with notches that slipped together like, well, boards with notches. No tools required. Great idea, poor execution. Notches in particle board are unstable.
I moved to the kitchen to create Trooper John’s Peanut Butter/Chocolate Ice Cream Topping. I mixed batches of the stuff, trying to get the right balance of flavors and textures. It tasted quite good, but I realized you could get the same flavor profile using Skippy and Hershey’s Syrup.
I had other flops, but I don’t want to give my detractors ammunition to mock me further. Some were ahead of their time, like the TV in a store window hooked up to a Commodore 64 computer running ads. Some were behind their time, like building a portable stage so kids could put on plays in their living rooms. Some just ran out of time.
As silly as some of these ideas now sound, they were not a waste of time. We have to go down all these rabbit holes if we ever want to arrive where we should have been in the first place. For me, it was realizing that the only thing people want from me are my stupid words. I’ve got plenty of inventory.
But if I hadn’t done all that other stuff first, I would have nothing to write about.