I’ve been cruising with the Mrs. again. We usually do two or three a year. I inevitably write a short article on my observations on how technology is used by both the cruise lines and the passengers reading their books. This year, I initially started to write about how large screen cell phones really seemed to be more prevalent and how quite a few people had signed up for the ships satellite internet plan. That all changed because of my shy, introverted personality.
Over a cup of coffee, I got to talking to a gentleman. He mentioned that this was his eighty-second cruise. I told him how much I liked to cruise but that it was unfortunately out of my budget to do that many. He then related to me how he could do it only because of sheer luck. It turns out that about ten years ago, he got an e-mail from a wealthy foreigner from Nigeria. It seems that a new government had taken power and tied up all of his funds. The only way he could reclaim them was to transfer them overseas. The fellow I met simply had to provide an active banking account for the funds to be transferred to. He also had to initially send a few thousand dollars to bribe some dishonest officials. For providing the service, he received several million dollars.
Just a few days later, I met a surgeon that told me the strangest tale. It seems that he was on a cruise that pulled into port. He had to cancel the remainder of his vacation and immediately fly back home. It turns out that there was a little girl that needed a life saving operation. He had agreed to do it provided she could get only ten thousand “likes” on her Facebook page. The doctor told me that the only reason he had agreed to do it in the first place is because he was sure the child would never get enough responses. He was true to his word and flew back early to save a life.
One day, in one of the shipboard bars, I told the stories of the millionaire and the doctor to a young lady. I was pretty sure she would think I was a liar, but then she told me how her belief in people was the cause of her good fortune. It seems a person on Facebook had bought a Powerball ticket and agreed to share the winnings with fifty random people. She wouldn’t tell me how much she got, but it sounded like it might have been several thousands of dollars.
I guess I’m just not very lucky. There was another passenger who had one of the latest iPad tablets. It seems that there was some minor flooding in a warehouse where thousands of them were stored. Even though they weren’t damaged, they couldn’t be sold as new. They were being given away as a promotion. Like I said, sometimes it is just a matter of luck.
I met another millionaire who became one simply by winning the Irish lottery. All he had to do was spend a few hundred dollars to pay for taxes and processing. The funny part was when he told me that he didn’t even remember entering the sweepstakes.
Of course, the more people I talked to, the more it seemed that everyone was much more fortunate than me. Then I met a fellow cruiser that made his money the old fashioned way, He earned it through plain, hard work. He started his own home business by stuffing envelopes for various countries. He used his profits and bought some equipment and was soon processing credit card transactions for some major companies. A few years later, he expanded his home business into the insurance claims business.
After two weeks, I didn’t think there were any other ways to make a lot of money. Then I met a man who was in the merchandise resale business. He went to various auction websites and bid on various items. He would often get new computers for as little as five dollars or a big screen television for a little more. He would then take these items and resell them on eBay or Craigs List for an astronomical profit.
Naturally, I checked on many of these profit generating plans and realized that they just wouldn’t work for me because I haven’t been lucky enough to get in on the ground floor. If anyone has any ideas on how I can finance my next cruise, please let me know. If you don’t have any ideas, you can just simply send me a dollar instead. Make sure you forward this article to everyone you know. You can also feel free to Tweet the link or post it on your Facebook time line. When you do, make sure to emphasis the fact that they only have to donate one measly dollar to me. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, they will not only finance my next cruise, but they can learn the latest methods for becoming a multimillionaire. If it works, I might not even have to build a new pyramid.