Is it Labor Day If You Don’t Labor?

I stared at the computer screen as though I expected it to start spitting out dollar bills. Right, like that was going to happen. I’ve checked my PayPal account at least a dozen times and my Google AdSense balance. Between the two of them they don’t add up to much, less that $120, and that’s with selling books on E-Bay out of my deceased mother-in-law’s library.

Yeah, you can get rich on the Internet, but first you have to know how and apparently it’s a big secret that only a genius can figure out. Or at the very least someone who is tech savvy, which I am not.

How many articles have I submitted on Hubber? What about that brilliant blog on Blogger? And don’t I have just the best website in cyberspace?

Okay, okay, I’ve done it all on my own and so far it hasn’t gotten me much. I’m no web designer and I don’t care what they say, navigating the free website developers is simply NOT that easy. Why I should be surprised by that I don’t know; I haven’t found much in life that is. Easy I mean.

My employer at my last actual paying job figured out a way to get rid of me several years ago because-really-who wants an old chick working for them in a management position? Oh, they did it with finesse, but the long and short of it was they wanted me out of there.

I don’t mind, my husband at 81-that’s right, 81-continues to have a paying job working part time, a little supplement to our joint social security income. We’re better off than most thank God. Still, I remember when working meant dressing for success, showing up on time, competing to improve your position and expecting to get raises for work well done. Now I labor in front of my computer to no good purpose.

Or maybe it does have a purpose? It keeps me entertained and at least once a day I learn something worthwhile.

The ping from my e-mail program brought me out of my reverie and I clicked to see what fascinating piece of mail was coming my way.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Making money your way

Dear geterdoneinterprises1944,

Everyone has something to share! Are you an entrepreneur with an idea? We have an opportunity for you! Click here for the chance of a lifetime to double your income!

Well, I thought, it’s at zero right now, so doubling it should be no problem. I read through the rest of the e-mail, mentally sidestepping the plethora of exclamation points, and nearly getting trapped more than once into clicking on a link that would take me into link oblivion from which I might never return and where I might be tempted-for a small monthly fee-to sign up with sassysoftwaresales.net in hopes of making a little pin money.

And then I remembered, the monthly fee would far outpace any income that would result from my signing up.

I clicked my “spam” link and dumped the e-mail. I’d spent the morning working on my blog about senior travel. After six months I only had one follower and that was my seventeen-year-old granddaughter who thought it was great, or at least that’s what she said. Google analytics indicates she’s one of a very few who ever read it.

“Addie?”

“In here, my dear.”

My husband walked in looking handsome in his blue broadcloth shirt and walkabout khaki shorts. He shook his head in resignation.

“Might have known you would be in here. Playing games?”

Now that about halfway ticked me off. Well, sure, I played games now and again, but those were my thinking tools. Got my writing juices flowing.

“I’m working,” I said, carefully making sure the Scrabble game I had going was hidden behind the screen showing my e-mail program.

“I don’t know why you bother. You’re never going to make money at that.”

“Well I won’t if I don’t stay with it,” I said with more asperity than I intended.

He shook his head and turned away. “Thought we might go into town for coffee at the diner, but if your too busy…”

“Just give me a minute. I’m writing an article for Yahoo about Labor Day. Let me get it posted and I’ll be ready to go.”

Well it was the truth. I had been writing an article about Labor Day, but it was finished hours ago. After he left I clicked out of the Scrabble program, shut down my computer and headed out. Another day of work in the Internet fast lane.


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