Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Greed is Good

Back in High School, I was having dinner with my good friend Matt Jeffrey. His mom and her boyfriend, Tom, whipped something yummy up in the kitchen and invited me to stay for some grub. Over dinner, Tom went on to ask us if we had any ideas on practical jokes for his twin brother. Since they were kids, they had a contest: the first one to say "gobble gobble gotcha" to the other during the season between Halloween and Thanksgiving would win. Over the years, it got more interesting. One year, Tom snuck into his brother's bed (with the wife in bed already) and waited for him to come back. Needless to say, he won that year. Another time, he spray painted it on the garage door so that when his brother pulled out, that was the first thing he saw.

 

That year, he was trying to wrangle 20 live turkeys to deposit on his brother's doorstep. Local animal codes, however, weren't in his favor. Asking aloud if we had any ideas, I immediately blurted out: "Pay someone to dress as a Turkey and tackle him!"

 

He immediately responded: "I'll pay you $300 bucks to do it on Thanksgiving."

 

Fast forward to Thanksgiving, I'm in Santa Clarita dressed in a Turkey outfit and I tackled the man while yelling "gobble gobble gotcha." Easiest, and most fun, $300 bucks I ever made.

 

Back in 1997, it would have been challenging to find someone to do this. With the internet in such infancy, websites catering to finding the right person had yet to really pick up. Well, rest assured, today life has been made easier with the advent of:

 

www.GreedyPeople.com

 

Create an account and post whatever you need done. One guy is offering $25 if someone would buy maxi-pads that he could give to his girlfriend (so he could prove that he's comfortable with it); another guy will pay you $500 on top of expenses to fly to New York and cuss out his boss (and capture it on video). Okay, I only mention that last one because I can't do it. It doesn't involve Turkey outfits.

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