How to make money from: love.
As you know, I like to think of The Dark Balloon as a place where you can come, set your suitcases down, and get some sound financial advice. As part of my continuing effort to turn you from a poor orphaned elfling into a rich orphaned elfling, I’ve compiled lists of ways you can make money off of simple household items. Today’s household item: love.
You kidnap your rivals’ girlfriends, leaving a business card that contains only the URL of your website. The website is a Netflix knock-off for parts of said girlfriends. After signing up, users can choose to spend unlimited time with two queued parts, and then return them to receive the next two parts. Is this week more of a thigh-and-waist or elbows-and-fingers? Choose carefully! Your first month is a free trial. There is also an “Instant Watch” feature but, really, it’s just a gruesome photo gallery.
At a bar, you wait for a woman to spill a drink on you. You create an optical illusion in which the woman thinks you are giving off electrical sparks. You introduce yourself in a robotic voice. She introduces herself, intrigued by your metallic accent. She asks you about it; you tell her you are a robot—a love robot. You two hit it off. Your relationship quickly progresses, but she knows deep down inside in her heart of hearts—she is part bovine—that your callous lack of emotional ability will stymie all hopes of true love. You tell her there’s a wonderful robot artificer who is willing to upgrade your emotional circuits but it’s too much to afford and you only have half the money saved up. She takes this news sadly. One day, she surprises you with the other half. She has been cutting corners and saving up ever since you told her about the miraculous surgery. Mechanically, you thank her as heartfelt as you can; she knows that in a few hours you will be able to truly express your feelings. You run away with the money. She dies alone, in poverty. As time progresses, you realize your heart has solidified during this long confidence game and, in a fit of irony, you become the robot you always pretended to be.
You open an amusement park where visitors pay money to experience love. The nearby people are surprised; they had not seen nor heard the construction. Everybody comes for a look-see; you generously charge $5 for admission. At the entrance, the most wonderful fried foods are offered, from sweet to spicy, from juicy to crunchy. Visitors engorge themselves, and the food seems to always have the same warm, giddy effect on everybody, as if all the troubles in the world had melted away, as if nothing else mattered but that sensation of ecstatic happiness. The people amble toward the rides, knowing the emotion will never end. But no matter which ride visitors choose—be it the merry-go-round, the hula hoops, or the roller coaster—they end up vomiting. People begin looking for trash cans but there are none. Soon, vomit covers the entire ground and then the booths and then the rides themselves. As visitors wade through the Katrinaesque splurge toward the entrance, which turns out to be the only exit, they find you, the ticket taker, are gone, and so is that feeling of life and humanity that had so enraptured them earlier. Now they only feel hollow and aimless. And they return back to their prosaic, loveless lives while you escape with the money to your prosaic, loveless life, hoping the stench of dirty money can mask the stench of a dirty conscience—but it never will.
You put yourself in a cage and hire somebody to paint a sign next to it. The sign would read “World’s Worst Person”, and you could have someone charge tourists $5 to watch you silently dance in uneven circles.