On a wealth of destitution
and leaving them wanting more!
I think the greatest mystery I have yet to solve is the quest for money.
Money and me? We have a pretty shitty relationship.
I mean, I love money, but money doesn’t seem to like me.
I blame paperwork.
I love tour guide work but out here in Nova Scotia, it is seasonal employment indeed.
With that in mind, I’ve been musing as to how I can maximize my earnings during a very short tourist season.
One approach is to guide multi day tours.
These bad boys would see this fool on a bus for twelve days in a row.
Sleeping in a hotel.
Twelve hours of duty, twelve days straight.
With a bus full of strangers?
I’m not so sure.
On one hand? There’s the cash. The cash in twelve days would be pretty sweet. Do that six times over the summer? I”d be set for the year.
BUT
Who am I within this little world?
Who do I want to be?
On the excursion tours that I lead, all I do is crack jokes. Well, that’s all I want to do. There is other stuff Adult stuff like making sure no one drowns, bleeds out or just plain keels over.
On top of this?
I need to make sure the rest of the guests make it back to the ship on time lest I suffer the wrath of a lot of people. I’m a cog and this thing moves like clockwork.
This is what Laura has called ‘the mom stuff’.
The nurturing and caring stuff.
I’m really quite bad at that. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I do my best for my family with this shit, but with he rest of the world? That’s more work than I have the capacity for.
My natural role?
The crazy uncle.
And doing shorter excursions where the longest that I’m with a group is maybe a day?
That’s just perfect.
It feels more like a show - a bunch of razzzle dazzle, some good belly laughs then on I go. I would never be a real physician, instead? I’d sell specialized placebos from town to town.
So instead of multi day tours and increased financial stability, I’ll go full Barnum and leave ‘em wanting more.
I will pay the price of wrestling with income issues.
It pays to care.
But that pay?
It has its costs.
Stay destitute you destituties