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Where has all my weed gone? I had an eighth just a few days ago. Now I have barely enough for today and maybe tomorrow morning. And I have $27 in my bank account. And I have no food.
I need to make money, fast. Freelancing has been slow for the last month and I don’t have another payment coming for two weeks.
I spark up another bowl and swipe to the next short. Plenty of time to figure something out. A translucent wave warms my body. I sigh and take a deep breath.
A thick hick accent comes through my earbuds and I open my eyes to find a redneck showing off his tilapia farm. The camera pans down to a tank holding dozens of fat blue fish.
“So you sell them to local restaurants?”
“Naw, mostly to a pet food company. They make ‘em into organic dog treats.”
“How much do you get?”
“Depends how big they are. This big sucker-” He sticks both hands into the tank and grabs a huge dark blue fish “- this is twenty-five bucks right here.”
“Wow. So there must be thousands of dollars worth of fish here?”
“Yeah, like five hundred grand. Actually -” The fish thrashes out of his hands and bounces off the floor. A nonstop stream of bleeped swearing as the farmer grabs at the fish and it flops out just out of reach. The interviewer laughs his ass off and the video fades to black.
I take a huge hit and blow the smoke into the ceiling fan. Twenty-five bucks per fish. And there are millions of tilapia in the local ponds. And they’re an invasive species, so I’d actually be performing a community service.
I look out the window and into the parking lot. It’s pretty dark and most of my neighbor’s cars are here. Must be too late to go fishing today. But I need to get a fishing rod and stuff first anyway,
I shuffle out of my room and find Dustin on his laptop, as always. I have to jump up and down before he finally takes his earbuds out.
“What is it?”
“I just had a great idea for making money.”
He sighs. “I don’t know if I even want to hear this.”
“It’s a really good idea this time!”
“I doubt it.”
“C’mon, bro! Why do you have to be so negative?”
“Because the money-making ideas you have when you’re high are always fucking retarded.”
“This is a good idea. Seriously.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine. What?”
“Y’know how there are tilapia in every pond in Southwest Florida?”
“No. What’s a tilapia?”
“It’s an invasive fish that they make into organic dog treats. Apparently you can get twenty-five bucks per fish. And there are millions of them around here. And they’re invasive, so I’d actually be helping the environment by doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Turning invasive fish into dog treats.”
“How would you sell them? Are you just going to walk into Publix with a bunch of fish chunks and ask to speak with the manager?”
“I guess I’ll have to contact a pet food company.”
“Jesus fuck,” Dustin says with a laugh. “Don’t waste my time with this shit.”
“You’re laughing now, but I’m going to make a lot of money off this.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Anyway, I need you to take me to the store to buy my fishing gear.”
“Why can’t you just go yourself?”
I smile and shrug.
“Oh, you’re ridiculously baked. Well, I actually do need to pick up a few things.”
“Awesome!”
***
Dustin keeps shitting on my brilliant idea all the way to the Walmart. We shuffle inside and he leaves me to get some toilet paper in the back corner of the store. The outdoor section is about a hundred miles in the other direction.
I set out on my epic journey and nearly walk into a huge Mexican family pushing a cart so full that the mother has to be helped by two of the older kids.
“Lo siento,” I say.
“De nada,” the mother replies with a tired smile.
I set off purposefully, my head down to avoid eye contact.
Fifteen minutes of walking and I’m finally in the fishing aisle. There are about fifteen different types of fishing rods and a thousand different lures. I pull out an impressive carbon fiber rod with a huge reel. Badass. But it’s two hundred bucks. I only have twenty-five dollars of credit on my card.
At the end of the aisle, I spot a kid’s fishing kit. A small push-button rod and reel combo with bobbers, hooks, and a few worms. Twenty bucks.
The box features a photo of a beaming twelve year-old kid reeling in a photoshopped bass while his “dad” celebrates in the background. This should do nicely.
I grab the kit and start my journey toward the registers. The few remaining shoppers are mostly meth heads, so I have to keep my wits about me. Though I guess that’s not really possible right now.
That’d be an interesting way to die, at least. Stabbed by a meth head at Walmart.
I join the long line at the only register still open. Dustin is nowhere to be seen. Hopefully he won’t have to wait for me much longer.
“You gonna take your kid fishing?”
I look up at the cashier’s polite smile. I wish.
“Uh, yeah.”
“My boy loves fishing. He’s always bugging me to take him.”
“Yeah, mine too.”
That might have been true, in another lifetime.
She rings me up and hands over the fishing kit.
“Have a good night, sir.”
“Thanks, you too.”
Not likely if she’s working the night shift at Walmart.
I stumble through one of the exits. Pretty sure it’s not the way we came in. The car isn’t in any of the nearby rows.
Finally, I spot it all the way on the other side of the parking lot. I’m getting more exercise tonight than I have in weeks.
Dustin watches me approach with obvious annoyance.
“You really took your time, huh?”
“Whatever, bro. Let’s get going. I need to learn how to use this shit.”
“You’re gonna be a pro-level fisherman by tomorrow?”
“Tilapia are easy to catch. You don’t need to be a pro.”
“How would you know that?”
“I did some research.”
“You mean you watched some YouTube videos.”
“Just drive, bro.”
Dustin’s finally given me enough shit for the time being. He nods and starts the car.
***
I make it to the local pond bright and early—just past 11:30 in the morning. Dustin insisted on coming with me—even if this doesn’t work, at least he’s having a good time. But it better work. I smoked my last real bowl and have only the shake left at the bottom of the baggie.
The rod came spooled up with fishing line, but I have to tie on the hook myself. Pull the line through the hook’s eye, loop it around itself six times, and time it off. That should be roughly right.
I struggle to put the plastic worm on and prick my finger.
“Ow! Fuck!”
Dustin laughs.
“I’m glad my pain is funny for you.”
“It is. Very funny.”
I flip him off and turn round to cast. Push the button down, arm straight back. Now swing forward and release!
The worm splashes into the shallows maybe five feet in front of me. More laughter from Dustin.
“Must have released it too late.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
I cast again. This time the worm flies a good fifty feet into a patch of cattails. I try reeling it back in and it feels like it’s stuck in cement.
“You caught some reeds?”
“Shut the fuck up, dude,” I say, only half-joking.
After yanking and yanking and yanking, the line comes free and flies halfway to me—without the hook and lure.
I reel in the line and look at the end. It’s not snapped—my terrible knot just came undone.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.”
I grab another hook and worm from the tackle box and tie them on, looping the line around itself a full dozen times.
“You lost your worm?”
“…”
“Did a fish bite it off?”
“Uh… yeah. That’s definitely what happened.”
“What really happened? I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Okay, I’m going to catch a fish this time. Here we go!”
I cast as hard as I can. The line goes light and drifts down to the water in front of me. A moment of silence and something lands high up in the oak tree beside the pond.
Oh. The worm flew off. Fuck this shit.
Dustin laughs harder than he has for I don’t know how long.
Fucking asshole. But part of me is glad he’s enjoying himself so much.
I play angry and throw the rod as far as I can into the pond. Dustin laughs so hard he starts gasping for air.
“Fuck it. I’ll just buy tilapia at the store.”
Dustin finally catches his breath. “How are you going to make money if you do that?”
“I’ll just buy frozen tilapia in bulk. I should still be able to make money.”
“Just give it up, bro.”
“I’m going to make this work. Seriously.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Let’s go to the store.”
***
The most popular tilapia dog treats are bits of jerky. That’s fine. Can’t be that hard to make jerky at home.
I put the tilapia fillets in the shitty built-in oven.
“This is definitely, absolutely, 100% going to work,” Dustin says.
I give him a dirty look.
“What? I’m being positive.”
“Are you.”
“Yeah. This is really going to work.”
“Okay, go away.”
Dustin returns to the couch. I shuffle to my room, trying to forget that I’m out of weed.
Three hours passes like nothing in The Old Republic. A bit more than three hours, actually. I don’t notice the time on the in-game clock until it’s fifteen minutes later than I’d intended.
I hustle out of my room and into the kitchen. Dustin hasn’t moved from the couch.
“Didn’t you hear the oven beeping?”
He shrugs, not bothering to look up from his laptop.
I might as well have left the tilapia in for another hour. It’s soggy and raw, with a few hard bits around the corners.
Look at me. What a pathetic loser. Failing at yet another incredibly stupid hustle.
I should probably give up at this point. But twenty-five bucks per fish—I’d make enough to smoke an ounce every month.
“You hungry?”
“What?”
“We have plenty of fish for dinner.”
Dustin climbs off the couch and shuffles over.
“I thought you were going to sell this.”
“Well… it didn’t turn out quite as I had envisioned.”
“It doesn’t even look cooked.”
“I’m going to have to put it back in until it’s properly cooked.”
“Yeah, but… it was supposed to be jerky.”
“Turns out cooking influencers aren’t the most knowledgeable people. You can’t actually make jerky in a normal oven.”
“Of course not, dumbass,” Dustin says, shaking his head.
“Shut up, fuckface,” I say and punch him in the shoulder.
“So you’re giving up on this stupid idea, right?”
“All I have to do is get one of those special ovens. Apparently, you can get a mini one on Amazon for less than a hundred bucks.”
“Dude, this isn’t even that funny anymore. Don’t spend any more money on this.”
“If the jerky cooker doesn’t work, I’ll give up on this.”
“Do you even have a hundred bucks?”
“l’ll get it somehow.”
“Bro, just do some more freelance writing.”
“If I was getting freelance work, I wouldn’t be trying something this crazy.”
“Then do something else. You can’t afford to waste a hundred bucks on this shit. Drive for Uber again or something. Or you could get a real job.”
“Yeah? Like you?’
“Well, unlike you, I actually make enough from my freelance shit.”
I sigh. “Anyway, let’s not have a fight about this. I’m going to try the jerky cooker. But one more thing that doesn’t work out like I expect and I’ll have to try something else. Maybe driving for Uber again, like you said.”
“Whatever, man. Your money if you want to waste it.”
He shakes his head and walks out of the kitchen.
***
I manage to get approved for a thousand dollar line of credit on Amazon. Probably the last bit of credit I’ll get approved for until I’ve climbed out of my current financial crisis. I wish Amazon sold weed. One day.
I order the jerky cooker and have it overnighted to our apartment.
It’s a lot smaller than I thought, no bigger than a mini fridge. It’ll only take one pound of tilapia fillets at a time. I’ll have to run it half a dozen times to cook all the fish I bought.
Thankfully, it works. After just four hours, one pound of tilapia has become maybe three ounces of crispy yellow jerky.
“This is actually jerky,” Dustin says when I call him over to show off my huge success.
“Told you this was going to work.”
“Don’t say I told you so until some money is actually in your bank account.”
So now how the fuck do I actually sell this shit? Do people even buy homemade dog treats online? Man, I didn’t think this through very well.
After a bit of browsing, I discover several successful homemade dog treat vendors on Etsy. They all have hundreds of glowing reviews for outrageously overpriced bits of dried meat. This is encouraging. Time to set up an Etsy account.
In about 10 minutes, my homemade dog treats are available at eight dollars per four-ounce bag. Not quite the profit margin I was hoping for. Maybe I should try catching the tilapia again. I can only get better at it.
I steal a few images from Purina to jazz up the listing. Time to let the money roll in. Or at least time to temporarily forget about this doomed attempt to make weed money.
***
Man, game devs these days really know how to get the dopamine flowing. Six hours passed like nothing. I forgot to eat dinner. Six hours. You could learn how to play an instrument in six hours. You could get a girlfriend in six hours.
I load up my Etsy account to find that I haven’t sold a single product. Even worse, my listing has only one view—and I’m pretty sure that was me double-checking for typos.
Unless I at least start getting some views by the end of the day tomorrow, I’m going to give up on this whole mess and try to forget that it ever happened.
***
Four views. Two from me. So two real views in 24 hours. Wow, this was an even worse failure than usual.
Dustin looks up from the coach as I shuffle out of my room wearing a hangdog scowl.
“Did you sell anything?”
“No. And the listing only got two views, not counting two from me.”
“Wow, epic fail.”
“Yep. Sure is. Again.”
“So… are you gonna give up now?”
“Well, let me put it this way: We’re going to be eating a lot of tilapia over the next week or so.”
“I thought you didn’t like fish.”
“I don’t.”
“I don’t like fish either.”
“Yeah, but the price is right.”
“I guess so.”
Dustin goes back to his laptop and I enter the kitchen. It stinks of fish. I pull a piece of jerky out of the cooker and take a bite. Ugh. Maybe if I was high and slathered it in barbeque sauce, it wouldn’t taste so bad.
I sigh and rub my forehead. It might be time to cut down on the weed. I definitely don’t need to stop smoking. But I do need to keep a clear head until I claw my way out of this hole.
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