Who Wants to Lock Down a Billionaire - Jamie Knight Page 0,2

I said, already on my way to the living room where Freya amused herself with one of the more bizarre episodes of The Muppet Show.

“Holy smoke!” shouted Statler and Waldorf as I turned off the set, in response to Fozzie’s inquiry about what the villagers said when the church burned down.

“Oooly thmoke!” Freya parroted, clapping her little hands.

“Bit young for Black Metal, isn’t she?” Astrid queried, feigning concern.

“Hilarious. You’re a regular Jay Lame-o.”

“Wow, you are old.”

“I’m twenty-seven!”

“Still, yikes. What’s next? Five minutes on 8-tracks and airplane food?”

“Here, have a baby,” I said, foisting Freya upon her.

“Just what I’ve always wanted!” Astrid enthused, wiping away a phantom tear.

Freya applauded her approval.

“At least someone thinks you’re funny.”

“I do appeal to a younger demographic,” Astrid confirmed, taking Freya to her playroom.

My “office” set up wasn’t much, but it was enough to do what I needed. Usually I worked as a researcher for academics and sometimes in the business sector. Researching books and articles, I got paid for writing reports in which I summarized my findings.

The pay was great, but jobs could be a bit inconsistent. After the outbreak it dried up almost completely. Maybe one or two contracts a month. Even at $30 dollars an hour, they usually only needed six to eight hours each and so the overall pay just wasn’t enough to get by on.

So, I did the unthinkable. Like an artist doing greeting cards or an actress modelling for burlesque photos, I started doing market research. It was really just a fancy name for consumer surveys.

It didn’t pay nearly as well, but I was to the point where I could do over fifty per day, which kept our heads above water. The rent-controlled apartment I’d inherited from my grandmother helped immensely.

It was worse than usual today, though. Most of the surveys I clicked on were dead ends. The preliminary questions determined that I wasn’t qualified to take the survey because I didn’t represent the right demographic, or some such rot.

This made me angry. I could understand if the survey was about men’s protective sporting wear or some other very specific niche, but who didn’t like coffee and power tools? Okay, a lot of people, but that shouldn’t be enough to preclude me from counting in the stats. A lot of the time, I realized I was a very rare case of someone crying internally, ‘I just want to be a number!’

Finally, after much disappointing and shameless lying as I tried to give the answers I thought they wanted, I was finally let through the gates and into the promised land of paid level surveys. After twenty thrilling minutes of multiple-choice questions about frozen vegetables for a whopping total of thirteen dollars, I was about to pack it in.

When I went out into the kitchen area of the apartment, the wine filled the glass in a delightful way. So scrumptious looking was the beverage that I gave into temptation, nearly emptying the glass in one go. Replenishing the level, I went back to the office before it was too late.

The submission page was still up, complete with the paltry sum being transferred into my bank account. Faced with a similar day tomorrow and many more besides, I did what I knew I wanted to do underneath all my layers of self-doubt and inhibitions.

The page was easy to find. The producers of course made sure to maximize the search engine optimization. Some people likely ended up with it on their list when looking for something else, like its classic namesake Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or a list of living billionaires.

The very image of more multiple-choice questions should have sent me screaming and running away from the application. Ordinarily it might have. But by focusing my will and remembering the million-dollar prize, I had the entire thing completed in ten minutes flat. I didn’t mention that I had a kid, but they also didn’t ask about that, either.

I told myself it didn’t really matter, because there was no way they were going to pick me, anyway.

Chapter Two - Adam

The view from the health club was beautiful. The white capped mountains were still visible in the pale blue glow of the light pollution against a background of the starry black sky. There were many views like it in Seattle, but that one was mine. At least at that moment.

It was never overcrowded, but a $200,000 per year membership fee ensured that. The private health club had become appointment only ever since COVID-19