I Want to Help You Make Money!

This column dates back a few years. It was written for the April Fools' edition of the Advance-Titan, the college rag I contributed to. Devious and charismatic salesmen who peddle easy solutions to life's complex problems have always been funny to me. When a conservative newspaper on campus printed a story about an ambitious business major promoting his get-rich-quick scheme, complete with a picture of the student beaming prosperously, clad in a suit-and-tie, and brandishing a wad of cash, I couldn't resist the urge to spoof the charlatan. I suspected he was a colossal tool.

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Hi, I'm Nicholas Olig and nothing would give me greater pleasure than helping YOU make money with one of MY ideas. See that picture of me? I look pretty darn rich, don't I? Not to sound boastful about my affluence, but let's just say that pile of loose change in my hand contains more quarters than pennies. And you see that coupon? It's for $1 off a pack of cigarettes. Only a fool would poison his lungs at full-price!

If you're like me, you value the love and respect of your family and friends. Well, by employing my perfectly legal scheme, you'll have enough money to buy up every ounce of love and respect your family and friends have to offer. (Next week I'll tell you how to SELL the love and respect of your family and friends to cost-effective markets overseas. Prediction: You'll be rolling in the dough along with various attractive people that want to have sex with you!)

Now for the perfectly legal scheme: If your mom is anything like mine, she is a sweet and caring woman who knows very little about sports. Family ties aside, that lack of sports knowledge is begging to be exploited. Hey, moms are great, but if they don't want to be exploited by their own children they should follow sports as obsessively as their male offspring.

Recently I was faced with a fiscal dilemma. I couldn't afford to pay my lofty heating bill because I blew all my money on miniature pilot costumes for my five kittens so they could regale me with feline reenactments of scenes from "Top Gun." It's a predicament almost everyone can relate to.

At home over spring break, as I brooded over ESPN Classic on the TV, mom walked in the room, glanced at the screen and said, "Oh dear, It doesn't look good for the red-and-blue football men, does it? The blue-and-white squad is up by a lot of runs."

A light-bulb flashed atop my head, and that light-bulb was made out of solid gold. She had just used baseball terminology in reference to a football game and had no clue the game had already been decided over ten years ago. What an opportunity!

After much persistence and a teary-eyed declaration that she didn't love me because she wouldn't gamble with me, I coaxed her into a hundred-dollar wager. I bet her the Buffalo Bills would come back from a 35-3 deficit to defeat the staggering Houston Oilers in overtime, and I gave her 3:1 odds to sweeten the deal.

And when the final whistle blew, sure enough, the Bills prevailed in the 1993 AFC Championship Game, just like I remembered. I was one-hundred dollars richer and I had more money to spend on Top Gun kitty reenactments.

My luck didn't run out there. Next they aired game six of the National League Championship Series from 2003 between the Marlins and my beloved Cubs. I waited until the eight inning, then called her into the living room and bet her double-or-nothing the Cubs would squander their two-run lead due in large part from fan interference from a future dead man in the bleachers alongside the leftfield foul line. She totally fell for it!

Now, don't get me wrong. I love the Cubs, and my mom for that matter, but not as much as I love money and the kitty Top Gun re-enactments money affords.

And by the way, some of the perfectly legal money I earned from my sports-ignorant mom was donated to charity. The charity is called, "Electronics for the Homeless," and because of my donation, a labor-challenged Oshkosh man who resides in the Dumpster Hut outside of Fletcher Hall was blessed with a free blender.

So there you have it: Exploiting your mom's lack of sports knowledge can make you a lot of money, and it is also a noble cause. I'll see you next week, when my photo will showcase the awesome calf implants I just purchased with one of my many piles of cash!

The Danger Zone Mix

Me: If the Danger Zone referenced on the Top Gun soundtrack was a literal, tangible place instead of a metaphor, which vehicle would you drive on your journey on the Highway to the Danger Zone?

Willy: Hold on. I won’t answer that question until you clarify a few things for me. In the first place, why would I voluntarily travel to a place called “The Danger Zone”?

Me: For the sake of thrill-seeking, maybe.

Willy: But I’m not really a thrill-seeker. I mostly seek paychecks and relaxation and sex. When I get done with work, I spend time with my wife and daughter. Sometimes I spark a joint in the basement and then put on NetFlix and fill out a crossword. Maybe get laid, if we can get the baby to take a nap. It’s a pretty tame lifestyle, based on routine, but I kind of prefer it that way. I’m not the Danger Zone type. I have no reason, no inclination to take a trip to the Danger Zone.

Me: Well, what if circumstances forced you to drive to the Danger Zone? What if you had to enter the Danger Zone in order to rescue your wife and daughter?

Willy: Then I’d call my wife on her cell phone. I'd be like, “I thought I told you to stay away from the Danger Zone. And you brought the baby along with you, too? What the hell? That’s pretty weak, honey.”

Me: Okay, okay. What if evil forces from the Danger Zone kidnapped your wife and daughter?

Willy: What kind of evil forces?

Me: Let’s see...How about a coalition of al-Qaeda zombies and black bears armed with bazookas?

Willy: Those creatures don’t exist. You know that, right?

Me: Of course I do. But the entire question is hypothetical in nature. The Danger Zone doesn’t really exist, either. It’s imaginary; therefore, it harbors imaginary things.

Willy: Well-played, nut-job. All right. So, the question you’re asking me is as follows: If al-Qaeda zombies joined forces with bazooka-shooting black bears and then kidnapped my wife and daughter and stole them off to a place known as the Danger Zone, which vehicle would I drive on my journey to rescue them?

Me: Yes, that’s it. Exactly.

Willy: Okay. I’m tempted to opt for a souped-up squad car or something flashy, with plenty of gusto, like an Escalade, but because the question itself is fantasy-based, I had better squash that rational instinct. Something invincible and deadly, such as a tank, seems like a good answer, but then again, tanks aren’t exactly designed for highway driving, are they? A monster truck comes to mind, but those are reckless vehicles, and I’d probably destroy a dozen or so cars accidentally on my way to rescue my wife and daughter. And that’s no good. I don’t need my conscience terrorized by the deaths of innocent strangers I was responsible for, just because I had the balls to command a beast like the Gravedigger on the highway. So forget about the tank and the monster truck.

Me: Will do. The tank and the monster truck are now dead to us.

Willy: What about the DeLorian from Back to the Future?

Me: On the surface, it’s an alluring choice, considering the appeal of ‘80s nostalgia, but keep in mind, if you exceed 88 miles per hour in that thing, you’ll be going back in time rather than saving your wife and daughter from capture in the Danger Zone.

Willy: That’s a valid point. Also, you really should talk to chicks more often.

Me: Neither here nor there but noted. Do you have an answer to the question?

Willy: Yeah, I think so. Staying true to the appeal of ‘80s nostalgia but excluding the time machine factor, I’m going with KITT from Knight Rider. That car is conditioned for danger. Plus it’s incredibly fast and nimble, perfect for highway driving, and if I drove the black sports-car from Knight Rider back to safety with my family in tow, I guarantee I’d have sex at least twice that night.

Me: All right. That was a clear and thoughtful answer, and I respect it.

Willy: What about you? Which vehicle would you drive along the Highway to this Danger Zone?

Me: Oh! It’s a no-brainer. The Batmobile.

Willy: Okay. I’ll go along with that. Which Batmobile?

Me: The one that Batman rides in, stupid.

Willy: Oh, my. How flabbergasting. No, I mean which incarnation of the Batmobile? Adam West’s muscle-car from the late ‘60s? Michael Keaton’s sleek and aerodynamic ride? The phallic-shaped version from Batman Forever? The militaristic vehicle with the escape pod motorcycle from the Christopher Nolan flicks...

Me: Got’cha. My bad. Allow me to clarify. I’d go with Michael Keaton’s Batmobile. My hunch is strong that, of all the Batmobiles, Keaton’s showcases the best balance of style, giddy-up, armor, weaponry, and handling.

Willy: Fair enough. So, I’d drive KITT along the Highway to the Danger Zone, whereas you’d go with the Batmobile from the original Batman movie. Are we through here?

Me: Not quite. We’ve established the cars we’d drive, but an additional question to consider is as follows: What kind of music would you listen to en route to the Danger Zone?

Willy: Aside from the obvious choice of “The Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins?

Me: Preferably, yes. That pick doesn’t require much imagination. Plus, in this hypothetical scenario, your journey to the Danger Zone is long enough to include exactly ten tracks of your choosing. It would be trite and agonizing to listen to “The Danger Zone” ten times in a row.

Willy: Hey, that’s debatable. It’s clear you don’t have much respect for the soundtrack king of the 1980s. “I’m Alright” doesn’t put you in the mood to take off your shirt and run around a sprinkler with a bottle of champagne in hand? I’m worried about you.

Heavily rewritten with better results, this one appears in my eBook More Stories, and Additional Stories. 

The Music Our Parents Fell in Love to

“It's fascinating and stupid to watch adults destroy things on purpose.” --Chuck Klosterman

The following is a copy of a status update I posted on Facebook a couple months ago:

“(Nick Olig) declared 'Damn, it feels good to be a gangster' as he destroyed his tape deck 'Office Space ' style but now the CD player his friend generously installed in his Honda Accord isn't working and he realizes that God is punishing him for declaring himself a gangster (which he's obviously not) by forcing him to listen to the likes of REO Speedwagon and Styx.”

That's the truth. Only, instead of using a baseball bat to smash an antiquated and faltering piece of machinery like Michael Bolton did, I was swinging a sledgehammer. The CD player that my friend Max had installed functioned exceptionally, without a hitch, for about 10 minutes, until the machine refused to eject the CD, a copy of the Raconteurs' “Consolers of the Lonely.” I enjoy a good 70% of this album, but still, the thought of listening to it on an interminable loop was unbearable. And so later on I pried this disc out of the CD player with the aid of tweezers. The advice that my friend Matt gave me afterwards—as a perturbed vessel of common sense—was this: Electronics and tweezers don't mix. This axiom should be obvious to anyone who isn't a dipshit, and I knew it beforehand, but I had developed such a neurotic grudge against the electronics in question that I had become like a darkly obsessed protagonist from an Edgar Allan Poe story. The unrelenting drum beat from “Consolers of the Lonely” was the heart that pulsated loudly beneath the floorboards of my mind.

Removing the CD was a resolute and precise procedure that mirrored several failed attempts playing the board game Operation. The CD was not easy to extract. The alignment inside the CD player must have been jarred askew by the repeated yanks I exerted on the disc. And so after “Consolers of the Lonely” was tugged free, no more CDs would fit into the narrow slit of the Alpine. The dreadful ordeal was like offering a spoonful of mushed carrots to a fussy infant—or worse, actually: it was like offering that same spoonful to a fussy infant with its jaw wired shut.

And so my efforts to modernize and upgrade technologically backfired. Regression was the ultimate result when I felt like a destructive gangster because I had watched a great satirical comedy over a dozen times in college and therefore felt inspired to bash in my tape deck with a sledgehammer. Indeed, it was a fascinating and stupid gesture. I felt a begrudged and ambivalent fondness for the tape deck (even though it would only function two-thirds of the time) and yet I destroyed it because it caused me a black eye as an owner of dowdy and outdated things. Even so, I think I was justified in the undertone of contempt I felt for my tape deck. If your aim is to avoid the radio at all cost because you're finicky about music (like me), the tape deck ranks two slots below the CD player and the Ipod. I own a CD player, but not an I-pod, and the CD player is not fit for trips in a car. It seemed like an easy decision, to extend that hand one rung higher on the latter of technological advancement.

But the whole thing backfired, as I've told you, and now I've moved one slot below the tape deck to the radio. Not only on a scale of technological advancement, but also on a scale of complacency with music—the latter of which is far more important—the radio is inferior to the tape deck. I am now 275% more likely to crash my car into a jungle gym or a hot dog stand because I'm constantly fussing with the radio dial in a state of perpetual discontent. With only the radio to listen to on journeys across town to the library or Taco Bell, my last words are increasingly likely to be, “Def Leppard AGAIN?! Are you fucking kidding me?”


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Read the rest, along with 39 other comedic essays, by ordering a copy of "There Will be Blog."

www.xlibris.com/NickOlig.html