Here's a behind-the-scene looks at a day in the
life of me, a Freebie Publisher:
***
7:00 am I arise with a silly smile on my face, due to a
recurring dream about owning Wal-Mart.
***
7:15 am to 7:45 am I finger through an assortment of free
beverage samples stored in my free coupon organizer, and
decide which powder packet will taste the least offensive. I
mix it with milk or hot water or cold water or orange juice
or whichever liquid is called for, take a swig, grimmace,
and wonder if the taste would be improved with a dash of
whiskey. Sometimes I wonder if Vodka would be more appropriate.
***
7:45 am to 8:15 am At breakfast, amidst random conversation
with Linky and Dinky and Uncle Url, who are always about 30
minutes ahead of me in the morning routine, I unfold the
newspaper which Dinky had folded into a giant paper hat (or
airplane or rooster or something else he learned how to fold
at http://www.origami.com). During this newspaper-reading
ritual, I keep close watch to see if some gooey
unmentionable is stuck to a page somewhere, and I always
hold the crossword section up to the light to see how many
erasures Uncle Url made and keep mental score (the highest
count yet: 12)
***
8:15 am to 11:00 am Back to my room to my computer, I play
CNBC's Squawk Box in the background to monitor stocks I
don't own, and I go through my email. This is where I learn
about Freebie offers I published that got changed to
not-so-free overnight because too many Binky fans swarmed
the poor company asking for about 1000 times more pencils,
project organizers, spices or what-have-you than the company
could possibly provide. I also peruse through the huge
assortment of duplicate freebies sent me by our fearless and
prolific Freebie Hunters (whichever one I read first gets
the credit! but unfortunately I skip 98% of them due to my
standards, but please keep 'em coming!) I also wade through
about 15 emails about Free Wisk Tablets or other freebies
I've already published. Sometimes people forward one of my own
newsletters to me saying "here's a good freebie, publish this one!"
I'll also get plaintive wails from little web site companies
begging me to publish their freebie giveaway (which really
isn't free because they want shipping and handling of $8 or
some stupid scam like that.) Sometimes a Freebie site owner
writes to cuss me out because they only intended to give
away 20 or so free herbal snake oil supplements per week,
and complain that WITHOUT PERMISSION I published their URL
and they got 4500 requests they can't possibly afford to
mail out, and if I do it again they will SUE me for
advertising their product for them. On and on it goes.
***
11:00 am to 11:15 am Like clockwork, I retire to the water
closet to catch up on my reading. Currently, I'm touring
Nova Scotia in my mind's eye. The Naval Magazines were
really cool, I enjoyed those immensely (but why does
Brazil need an aircraft carrier?)
***
11:15 am to 2:00 pm I trudge 15 miles each way through the
hot Florida sun to the Post Office to get the mail. I always
carry one one of my free water bottles, wear one of my free
caps and free t-shirts, and I carry my free "Save The Earth"
trash collecting bags, and I pick up garbage people threw
out the window, just so I can help save the environment. Yes, I'm
doing my part, but it's not all unselfish: along the way I
keep an eye on the ditches for discarded items of value.
Very often I'll find refreshment in the form of half bottle
of beer that landed upright without much floating in it.
(But I'm careful, because sometimes it's not beer in the
beer bottle!)
I'll linger at the Post Office because it's air-conditioned,
and I go through the day's mail. There's always a few
magazines, a few powdered beverages, soap, lipstick, some
creamy crap for skin care, pens, pencils with my name on it,
a condom or two, shampoo, perfume, cologne, a ton of
weight-loss or weight-gain or fat-loss or vitamin pills, a
videotape about something, a CD or two from AOL, sometimes
a t-shirt, sometimes a notepad, sometimes a magnetized pin
or envelope, sometimes a paperback book, a mint, a pocket
screwdriver, and of course, a whole bunch of
computer-generated bills for stuff I was supposed to be
receiving free, and that's where the fun comes in.
I'll collect all the bills together, and assume the position
about 5 paces away from the open-mouthed trash can at the
post office. With a frisbee-like flick, I'll aim for the
can, and I usually hit 2 out of 3. The ones I miss I'll
spindle lengthwise and stick them into each other to form a
telescoping rod which I'll wave around for a little while
until it falls apart. If there's a pencil lying around or if
I received one in the mail, I'll write "RETURN TO SENDER.
RECIPIENT BORED" and drop them back in the mail. That
confuses them. Other times I'll open up the bills, take out
the postage-paid return envelopes, and write "GET IN LINE,
BUDDY!" on the outside and stuff it with bills from other
companies, or put in one of the free samples I didn't want
(like skin cream!) and write "PLEASE ACCEPT THIS WONDERFUL
SKIN CREAM IN LIEU OF CASH PAYMENT."
Some "bills" are faked to look like they come from
collection agencies (yeah, right!) I open those up and write
"I HAVE NO MONEY, GO AHEAD AND RUIN MY CREDIT. I DESERVE IT."
(Of course, they don't have my real name or social
security number, so it's all harmless fun because I know
that ANYthing sent in the mail without payment in advance is
legally considered a gift. No exceptions. Have you ever
heard of anyone having a bad debt on their credit report due
to an unpaid magazine subscription? Ha!)
***
By 2:00 pm I'm back home again, and inevitably there's a
yellow post-it note on my computer from Uncle Url
instructing me to do some chore or errand or something.
He'll also forward ads for me to put at the top of my
newsletter (after all, he's 'taking care of business' for
all of us.) And recently I've been having to provide one of
my freebies for reprinting into L&D, and twice a week I
proofread the L&D newsletter before it goes out (because I
spell like ten-thousand times better than L or D. And I
punch it up to with a joke or two if it occurs to me.)
Last week I had to help separate and fold a couple of
hundred T-shirts and stuff them into envelopes to send to
all the fans who got one already. If you haven't seen them,
their cool http://linkydinky.com/shirt.shtml I also help
organize and maintain our Secret Clubhouse
http://linkydinky.com/enter4.html
Of course, amidst all of this I'm writing up and sending
freebies to you all as I find good ones, and I spend about 2
hours in research looking for them for every freebie I
actually publish, and even THEN sometimes I miss some fine
print somewhere. I really hate it when that happens.
But that's about it, a DAY IN THE LIFE OF BINKY, and I wouldn't
trade it for anything.