What A Moron!

I sold my dreams for $20 000. Crazy right? But hear me out. It’s not like I had made much progress. At that point, they weren’t much more than mere doodlings and ideas jotted down in a notebook. Now, there are things much scarier than a big 20. And there’s nothing at all scary about an almost blank, black notebook, the size of your hand. But what is terrifying, is being stupid enough to sign a contract with a guy you just met on the street. Not to mention overlooking that evil, small print stating the legal jabs for breaching the contract, purposefully put there to screw you over down the track of course! But what kind of moron would do that? Well, I like to think that it’s actually more common than you think. Surely you know of or have yourself fallen victim to some sort of scam, whether it be paying that rather questionable fortune teller for a reading, or having to pay for that one friend’s meal because they, “forgot their wallet”. Well, same. I too was scammed, just….royally.

**********

I was sitting on a bench minding my own business, thinking about what I was doing with my life. You know, the usual. Just another day of comparing my consistently dull existence to the ever-changing world around me. I might as well have been born a rock, cause frankly, a rock would have made more progress than I had. I ran my thumbs over the smooth, pleather-covered notebook. There were so many goals that I had written down in there: running my own business, being in a romantic relationship et cetera. Hmmm, now how many of these had I achieved? I thumbed through the pages until I landed on the part that read ‘Achievements’. I peeked below it, “First job, high school and university graduate, moved out and living with roommates”. In other words, a piece of paper, a mountain of debt, and a whole lot of noise. I groaned. It was my 16th class reunion that year and there were still no signs of improvement. At least I had my own shabby room, and a job that paid minimum wage. It could’ve been worse. But it could’ve been a whole lot better. I sighed. Thinking that much sure was exhausting!

At 12:03 PM, a disheveled man plonked down next to me on the bench. And from that moment, I started counting down how long I had to sit there before I could leave without offending him. He didn’t do anything, I just didn’t feel like being around anyone. We can’t all be extroverts. I could go into detail about what he looked like, but that would honestly be a waste of time. Just picture an exhausted, overworked, average Joe. Great, that’s him! Nothing distinct about him, nothing at all memorable.

178, 179, 180! My eyes danced. I could finally go. But just as I was about to leave, the guy cleared his throat. I saw the world crash before my eyes. I had missed my opportunity. I plastered on the biggest smile I could muster.

“Hi, sorry to disturb you. Would you be able to tell me the time?”

We kept on talking. Turned out average Joe was actually a Joe. Who knew?

“Say, what d’ya have there in your hand?”

I glanced down at my open notebook. Now that was a deep question. Was it a record of beautiful dreams to come? Or an almost empty book about to end up as trash? Yeah, the latter seemed more accurate.

“A record of dreams? I’ve never had one before. Where might I get one?”

I stared at him blankly. At the store. You can buy something like this at almost any store. Heck, supermarkets have them nowadays. His eyes were glued to the book. It might as well have been made of diamonds and gold. That’s how fixated he was on it.

“Say, would you sell that to me?”

“Umm… I don’t know...”

“I’ll give you $20 000 for it.”

“Nice doing business with you!”

Average Joe no longer seemed that average at that point.

He glanced around before reaching into his jacket pocket. I knew it had seemed too good to be true. It looked like my dull existence would be brought to an end by not-so-average Joe. He whipped out the object. This was the end. Ahhhhhh…it was a…a contract? He clicked a pen.

“Sign here.”

And with that I signed. Not reading a single thing, I signed and $20 000 was deposited into my account. What a moron! He just wasted 20 grand on recycling paper; 20 grand! I was going to make it big! And with that, we went our separate ways.

*********

You’d think I’d have seen the red flags waving directly in front of my face. Alas, my prescription needed updating because I saw nothing; zilch, nada. If I had bothered to read the fine lines, I would have seen, “I will not use or try to accomplish any of the things mentioned in the black notebook given to Joe on the 6 of April at 12:13 PM. Should this be broken, triple the negotiated price is to be paid to Joe, or a sentence of 13 years in prison is to be awarded to the signee”. I still don’t get how this was a legal contract. But, for some reason or other, it checked out. Could have been laced with some voodoo magic for all I know. If I hadn’t signed that contract, I could have started my business by now. An investor liked my business idea and offered to become partners. It was a dream come true, so I turned him down. Let’s not forget, now I'm officially single for the rest of my life. I should just become a nun! Looking back, he must've been the devil in disguise. Who else would buy MY notebook? I wish I could ask him, but I haven't seen or heard from him since.

And so, I gave it all away for a whopping $20 000. Whoopdeedoo, lucky me. How clever am I to have traded all my life goals for a full wallet and my own private cell. If I could go back in time, would I still sign that contract? To put it simply, no, no I wouldn’t. But my sarcasm should’ve clued you in on this already. And if it hasn’t? Then, it is with a heavy heart that I must say that you, my friend, are worse off than I am. I’m only half-joking…sort of…I digress. I really do regret signing away my life like that. I never was able to see things through, never really allowed myself to give it my all before succeeding or throwing in the towel without regrets. I wanted the easy way without caring to understand the consequences. Yes, believe it or not, I was naive and stupid. Now I sit at that same bench every day at 12:03 PM hoping that he’ll come back with my notebook. Pathetic, I know. But for that small sliver of hope, it’s worth it. So I’ll wait there tomorrow at 12:03 PM, waiting, like a moron.