I woke up on my day off with a feeling that many must wake up with, that I needed money. I didn’t just need some money, like search under the couch money. I needed ‘no working ever again’ type of money. Spending decades to earn a measly wage seemed futile compared to figuring out how to make lots of money in a very short amount of time. I hopped out of my bed quickly, that is relatively quickly, in about twenty minutes when it usually takes me about an hour or two.

I smoked a few cigarettes and had a few cups of coffee watching the TV news. I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down some ideas. I could sell some blood, semen, or internal organs. I could sell some possessions on the internet; but, I realized that I don’t own anything worth more than some pocket change.

The phone rang. I answered it and my friend was on the other line. Once he heard my wonderful idea of coming up with an idea to make loads of money, he was over faster than it would take to watch the Godfather trilogy.

Once my friend arrived, we began to brainstorm. We began by realizing that many people had tried to come up with an idea to make lots and lots of cash in a very small amount of time, and we decided to try and steal their ideas. It would be easier.

"We could sell babies on the black market," my friend exclaimed.

I pondered this for a moment. "Isn’t that illegal?"

My friend laughed. "Oh you silly bastard, odds are what we come up with will be illegal. The government doesn’t want people making money without devoting their life’s energy into it! Don’t you see? Money is really the carrot dangling in front of all our faces, daring us to get up and work every morning, for the rest of our lives. If we figure out how to get that carrot, by say, cutting the string; well, that is just plain illegal and most likely immoral."

"Let’s pray there is no hell," I interjected.

He smiled. "Now you get it."

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Where would we get these babies?"

"I hadn’t thought of that," my friend said looking concerned. "It would take too long to make them, and stealing them, well that is difficult. You would have to take care of the baby in between stealing it and selling it. Taking care of a baby is a real bitch, and the fact is if you let it die, odds are the buyer won’t want it anymore. Next idea."

"How about goldfish? Is there a black market for goldfish?"

"The crackers or the animal? No matter, both are easily attainable. How about deer? Deer aren’t readily available."

"Hmm," I stalled as I tried to pretend that his idea wasn’t the worst I ever heard. "How about something rare like a purple cat? I mean, it’s all about supply and demand. Not to mention the costs of dyeing a cat purple."

"Dye the cat purple? I see," he interjected. "I was thinking maybe changing its DNA, but dyeing would be cheaper, so that would be good. However, I don’t believe anyone wants a deer, purple cat, goldfish whether the cracker or the animal, or any of those really. Babies or nothing. I think we need to get off the selling on the black market idea."

"Unless of course, we sell drugs. We could just sell aspirin to school children and say it’s LSD or some new super caffeine sugar happy pill." I couldn’t help but feel a little bit cocky after proposing such an idea. I could feel my chest swell a bit.

"That sounds like a good start," my friend said staring out the window. "However, school children typically have very little money. Maybe there is some club where stupid millionaires get together in the evening and have socials. If we could get in on something like that, well, we could be millionaires ourselves by dawn."

"I bet there is no such club, but I would also bet that we could start that club! We could paste flyers for in the mall, near stores where there are no customers because their merchandise is too expensive!"

My friend stood up and paced. I could tell it made him feel smarter. Hell, it made me feel smarter just to watch.

"However," my friend said, "it takes money to make money. If we were to have this stupid millionaire club social, we would have to buy appetizers. Let me tell you right now, millionaires, despite their IQ, they do not eat cocktail wieners, chips, and pop. We would have to buy some serious grub. I am thinking lobster flavored potato chips, ding dongs dipped in caviar, and crackers which were baked by genetically altered Bonobo monkeys."

I slumped in my chair. I muttered, "I guess we can’t afford that."

My friend sat down as well. "Fuck no."

We sat for a few moments in silence. I began to mutter to myself, "Make money, make money, if only we could make money."

I sat up in a bolt. "We can make money!" I exclaimed, "I mean literally make money!"

"Not counterfitting," my friend responded, "That is really complicated."

I ran out of the room. After a minute or two, I ran back. By that time my friend was on the computer looking at porn. "Come here, take a look!" I exclaimed

He came over and sat on the couch. I showed him the book I was holding, The Complicated and Incomprehensible, Yet Completely Complete, Guide to the Most Popular Voodoo Spells. He tried to grab it, but I held tight. I pulled away and opened it up. I paged through it until I found the page I was looking for.

"Here we go," I read, "The Make Money spell. Let’s see, do you have any chicken’s blood?" He shook his head. "Do you have a silver coin?"

He reached into his pocket and removed a Sacagawea dollar coin. "How about this?"

"Great," I responded and got up to retrieve a bottle of ketchup from my kitchen. "This will do." I poured some in my hand and read more from the book.

"Is that all we need? That’s easy," he said as he watched me poke the ketchup.

I began to whisper in Haitian. "Put the coin in the ketchup," I told him. He did so and I whispered more Haitian words read from the page. "Now, put the coin in your mouth."

He grimaced and put the coin in his mouth. After a moment he spit it out. "That’s disgusting, what is that? Hunt’s ketchup"

"Yeah, sorry," I apologized. We waited a moment. His face started to turn white.

"I don’t feel so good," he said quickly as he started to vomit. At first, it was normal vomit, but then I saw a Sacagawea coin land on the floor, covered in bile. I wondered if he had swallowed the coin when I saw about five more of them come out of his mouth, I knew something else was up.

He started retching violently. About a dozen more coins came out, all slimy. "This is the worst pain I have felt in my life." I apologized as I wiped my ketchup-covered hand clean on the side of the couch and began picking up the coins. By the time he reached fifty coins, I noticed some blood on them.

"Do you think we should take you to the hospital?"

He paused his retching long enough to say, "Are you kidding me? I barely barfed enough just for the E.R. Fee!"

At about the one hundred mark, he passed out. I knew that you weren’t supposed to let a person with a concussion sleep, but this was never covered in First Aid. I watched him for a few minutes. Suddenly he awoke and started running, all the while coins fell from his mouth.

I followed him until he got into the bathroom. He slammed the door and I could hear moaning and the ‘cling cling’ of change hitting the tiles. I heard what sounded like a child violently throwing pennies into a fountain.

"I have good news, and I have bad news," he shouted from inside. "The good news is I stopped puking these damn things. The bad news is I don’t think we can or would want to flush them, nor would we want to wash them."

"How much do you think you have there?" I yelled back.

"I don’t know, I never filled a toilet with Sacagawea coins and then counted them. Can I do this in the tub?"

"Sure, I guess," I answered not knowing what the hell else I should respond with. Within moments I could hear the coins hitting the porcelain of the tub. Clang, clang, clang. I had this sudden image of my friend having bells lined up where his eyes should be.

"Do you think Pepto-mismol would help," he groaned. I could tell he was in a lot of pain.

"Stick it out! Just be lucky we didn’t use a penny. It would have been a hundred times worse."

"What?" He screamed, and then he really screamed, "Ahhhhhh!"

"Keep it up! We’ll be rich!" I exclaimed with joy.

"How much is a new bowel? Holy shit," he yelled. I think he was crying too.

"Oh, it can’t be too much," I said, not really caring. I was too busy thinking of all the strippers I could get dances from. I could just imagine slipping one of those Sacagaweas in her g-string and suddenly she screams, because those coins are kind of cold against the private area.

He came out of the bathroom looking very white, very tired, and even a touch angry. "It stopped," he sighed.

"Let’s do it again!" I shrieked in delight.

"Fuck no, fuck shit no!" He said angrily.

I put my hand on his arm, "Don’t worry, it’s my turn. But this time, we’ll use hundred dollar bills!"

"Are you crazy? I have an idea. Hold on, I need to sit down." He limped back to the living room and sat down.

I sat next to him. I asked him how he felt. He looked at me, answering my question by holding his stomach and appearing as if he might cry.

"There’s a dog next door," he said. "Why don’t you get that dog and we’ll give him the hundred dollar bill and all that spell shit?" He had a point.

I went next door. My neighbor owned a Chihuahua. It was in his screened sun porch. I cut the screen and grabbed it.

I brought the dog back to my house. My friend was feeling better, but not by much. He asked me if I had a hundred but I said I only had a few twenties. We taped them together and smothered them in some ketchup.

"This is how it will work," I said as I got the book of spells ready. "You hold the money in its mouth as I say the spell."

My friend nodded as he held the dog on his lap. I started whispering the spell again, but in the middle of it, my friend cut me off.

"He ate it!" He exclaimed. Sure enough the dog ate it.

I wondered aloud, "Do you think we should continue with the spell?"

"Sure, why not?" My friend watched as I continued the spell. The little mongrel walked into the corner. It began to shiver. This didn’t seem too odd for it to do, being a Chihuahua; but when it exploded, that did seem pretty odd.

We winced as blood flew all over us. We looked on the floor and saw hair, blood, and coins. "What are these things," I asked picking one up.

My friend picked up one as well. "Oh shit," he muttered, "These are fucking pesos. Well, that was worthless experiment."

We cleaned up the mess and threw it all out. We never found the twenties. After a few hours of watching TV, my doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see my neighbor; he was crying. "Oh, my poor doggie, Miggie. Someone stole her! Have you seen her? I would give anything to have her back! I am offering a twenty thousand dollar award."

I said that I hadn’t seen the dog and I closed the door. My friend stood there, putting on his jacket. "That’s it, once there is irony involved, I go home."

I agreed with him and I went home as well. Luckily, I was already there.