From Neil Bibbins, MEMBERSHIP MANAGER, Abuse:

I wish that I had more time to write, but I'm pretty busy right now. You see, in addition to being one of the Abuse Guys at Tripod, I'm also working on Big Plans.

Yup, you got it: Big Plans. For those who know me, this might come as a surprise; I'm not known for being the best at looking down the road. But having just undergone yet another agonizing birthday — making me an official Tripod old fart — along with the launch of the new millennium, I figured it was time to get my life in order and start thinking of the future.

I'm starting with this copy of Newsweek I've had kicking around since last year. You may have heard of this Bill Gates guy who's on the cover; he's the one whose company sounds like the reason Bob Dole uses Viagra. Basically, Bill has achieved the technological equivalent of buying the rights to those little things that fit on the end of shoelaces, and then charging for each time someone ties their shoes. Yes, there are those who wear sandals, thus bypassing the need for shoelaces, but they're a small minority and don't much damage the market for those little plastic things. And if we carry this sad metaphor even further, Bill's even in on the sandal market now, so he's doing okay. They say that he's worth about $77 billion.

Ouch. $77,000,000,000. That's nine zeros, a helluva lot of cash. They didn't mention any pocket change, so I figure they rounded the number off to the nearest dollar.

Me? I have a seven-year old pickup truck and an old motorcycle that I just crashed, a bunch of bicycles, and assorted other junk. My personal collection of zeros doesn't go beyond three. This means that Bill's way ahead of me by a whole bunch of zeros.

I went and found my calculator so that I could start working out some reasonable Financial Goals. I'm in pretty good shape, given that Bill's got about ten years on me. Estimating that the retirement age is getting pushed up to 70, I have about 33 years to hit the 77 billion-dollar mark. (I'm trying not to factor in the fact that Bill's going to continue to make money during my tenure in the workforce. No use making the Goals too difficult.)

So if you take that $77 billion and divide it by 33 years, we come up with a total of $2.3 billion a year. If I only sleep four hours a day and work the other 20, for five days each week (gotta have the weekends), I'd be working 100 hours a week. Basically, I can work two jobs, thus requiring me to earn just $1.15 billion annually for each job. Now we're getting somewhere ... I feel very encouraged.

Now, figuring on a 50-hour week per job (for a total of 100 hours), multiplied by 50 weeks of work each year (I need vacation or I get weird), I have a total of 5,000 hours to throw at this Goal each year. Since I hate thinking about salaries and might be applying for some local hourly work, it would be very convenient for me to start looking around for positions paying about $460,000 per hour.

Lofty aspirations? I think not, particularly when you consider the similarities that Bill and I share. For instance, having examined the photos in the article, it appears that we both went through adolescence looking like poster children for peer abuse. The fact that I was the lumpy, round version whereas Bill was the studious, owlish type makes no difference. Both of us share the imperative to succeed, as induced by spending our respective puberties as social outcasts. (Bill appears to have gotten through this phase, whereas I'm still working on it.)

Listen, I gotta go. I hear they're gonna be hiring at Taco Bell, and I want to get my application in early. Maybe I'll also look for something that pays tips.

And Bill, if you happen to read this, drop me a line. Maybe we could get together and swap ideas.

Neil