Watching the debate? Paying any attention whatsoever to the shitshow that is US politics, outside of the bare-ass minimum it takes to vote? You couldn’t pay me to do it. Not a fucking chance. Not happening. It’s all too upsetting and vile and fucked up. But you know, maybe that’s an exaggeration. Maybe somebody could pay me to do it. Let me figure out how much…
I would have to quit work in order to make mental bandwidth for it, so you have to pay enough to cover my expenses for two years in case it takes a while to get rehired. I make about $30,000 per year, so $60,000 is the price floor. But exposing myself to this would make me less emotionally available to my family, so you gotta pick up the therapy bills for them. Assuming two hours a night at $90 an hour from now through mid November (assuming this isn’t gonna go smooth), another $8,100. And that’s just getting by, if I want compensation to make it feel like I came out ahead in the deal, how much will I charge to feel like it was worth it?
$100,000. Anybody want me to cover the election, or even look upon the faces of our rock ’em sock ’em wannabe lich kings? Full payment in advance, or you get nothing. Thank you for your understanding.
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Edit to Add: I forgot about the cost of healthcare in the US – going out of pocket for health insurance. $400 a month for that Obamacare, $9600 more. Assuming some medical expenses actually will come up, even with insurance I’m currently paying a few thousand a year for dental and such. Let’s bump this up to $125,000, just for incidentals I haven’t planned for.
Actually, to minimize the impact on my taxes, I’d want to receive $25K of it this year, 50K in 2021, and 50K in 2022. I rely on an Obama era program called “Income Based Repayment” to avoid defaulting on my student loans.
Or maybe less per year. A quicky IBR calculator on internet says $50K is too high to qualify for IBR, which would make my loan payments so high I couldn’t afford rent. Being poor is a tightrope walk over a pit of alligators. Let’s say $10K this year, $40K, $40K, then $35K.
Ouch.
I get where the disdain is coming from, but… honestly? It feels awfully like you’re expressing contempt for people who *do* try to be more engaged than that.
Why watch the debate? I could ask my neighbor, who already thinks I’m a weirdo, to punch me in the nuts a couple times and it’d be over a lot faster and I’d be less angry and I’d maybe learn something.
Orion – Disdain? No. If you’re willing and able to do something that burdensome to me, that’s like a superpower from where I’m sitting.
Marcus – lol.