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Story Idea "$10K and One bad idea"

W

wheatgrinder

Story germ to stimulate the neurons of my IT friends..

I had an experience recently that has tickled my story neurons.. here is what happened and what I thought about it..

A few weeks ago I decided to buy a new "used family car" with cash. I took out $4000 and stashed it in a secure location at home right next to my passport.

Thats' it for the experience, but my brain went on...

Now, all the next week, while the cash set there while I hunted for a car, my brain kept saying.. "Self..we have $4k cash and a passport, we could be ANYWHERE in the world within 48 hours." .. interesting.. now what kinda trouble could I get into by acting on that impulse???

I up the stakes to $10K in the title of this post, but the ideas the same..

Ten Thousand Dollars and One Bad Idea.

Sort of a "anti lottery fantasy"

discuss..
 
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No doubt,
All my thought trains quickly end up in "post-adolescent-midlife crisis-hot chick in big trouble driving a small fast car and a week in a Turkish prison" - ville.

but thats just me..
 
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I'd probably go in a 2 day long spending-bender, invest it safely (ya, boring...but still)...Or get a nice camera, and a trip to Chernobyl.
Or just quit college, and travel across the US, writing, meeting people, hearing their stories...you know, 10K on movie cliches.
 
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Im not asking you what you would REALLY do.. gimme some drama please..

For the record, I bought a Nisan Maxima with the cash.


EDIT: Make up a character, hes 42 years old, handsome enough, low level successful, wife, kids, mortgage, a little tucked away etc. HES NOT A FILMMAKER.. :)

Hes got $10K cash and hes got a passport hes never used except for one biz trip to Brussels four years ago. He makes ONE bad choice, takes the money and runs to the airport.. why? What does he do when gets there.. ??
 
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On one episode the show "King of Queens", Kevin James won a pot of money at work even though his wife said not to bet. He had so blow (I think) $5k in a day to keep her from knowing about it. He ate at the nicest restaurants, rented a Lambo, hired a famous musician to do a personal conference and he still couldn't spend it all haha. It was good.
 
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Maybe the guy's a writer, struggling to find his voice, wife nagging him to pay bills "You'll never make it as a writer, honey." so he decides the only way to pen the most authentic and compelling novel is to "Write what you know." which means embarking on an adventure (misadventure) so he has something to write about. Only the result is far from anything he had ever dreamed possible.

That sort of thing?
 
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Ha! Could be a fun story. There's gotta be a catalyst -- what is it that causes this man to go against his normal, responsible self, and start making impulse decisions? Catches wife cheating (or thinks he does)? Is slipped a mind-altering substance (nah, that's too much "Hangover")? Or, maybe this guy is super-nerdy, majorly introverted, and rather lonely, but then one day, this super-hot, free-wheeling adventurous girl takes a liking to him, so he latches right back, and spends the money on wild adventures to impress her?
 
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The guy is going through a mid-life crisis and was recently canned from his job - the $10k was part of an up front severance package. ON his way home, he's trying to figure out how he can tell his wife the news since she will be the new bread winner and she's a type-A, ball bustin' lady.

On his way home - he passes the airport and starts to day dream about where he's always wanted to go.

He gets home, doesn't tell his wife about losing his job but says that he has may have to fly out of town for business. The next morning he wakes up and gets ready for work and drives off with hsi passport.

He drives to the bank and opens a new account and transfers the severance money into a new account. Then he drives to the airport and catches a flight to the place that he dreamt about before.

While on his "trip" he loses his passport and luggage and only has a couple hundred bucks on him (maybe gets roofie'd at a bar by a sexy, younger lady) and he has to try and figure out how to get back home

Or something like that
 
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I think its important that he has a GOOD life to start with, an attractive interesting wife that loves him etc. This makes the "choice" even more surprising. Also, I like the idea of the catalyst, but something much smaller, like an exotic coin shows up in his pocket..( I do see a need for a larger explanation, but reveal that late in the story). I can imagine a scene late in the film where hes on the phone trying to explain to his wife where he is and whats happened (hes broke, or in jail or what ever) and his wife asks him "why did you do this?" and he doesn't have an answer! Being the cool wife she is, she says.. "well, call me back when you know" and hangs up! DOH! This was his one and only phone call from jail!) the next part of the film is him answering that question for himself. (EDIT: internally speaking.. Externally we have some cool action and adventure)
 
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Hmm, $10,000 feels fairly limiting, as it means you can pretty much only travel to one place and that one place can't be very developed, so...

I'm thinking a repressed middle-aged 9-5er with a perfect nuclear family and dark impulses that he struggles to control. Something like pedophilia or murdering prostitutes or something else that could easily be done in a third world country. Inevitably, he gets caught somehow, and takes his long stashed $10,000 and Passport and flees to oh, let's say Thailand. While there, he attempts to start a new life but his old compulsion is still there and in an environment with considerably less rule of law it consumes him and he goes on a rampage.

It would be a semi-sympathetic portrayal of someone who almost can't help what he does.
 
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I'm currently reading Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito and this thread keeps making me think of it. :)

How about this: Head to a second/third-world country like Wombat said, but take that 10 grand and start a drug smuggling business to make it GROW. Perhaps the main character can then become a libertarian-capitalist revolutionary?
 
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Gotta narrow down if its $10k that's:
- going to be missed?
- not going to be missed?

Is antagonist going:
- to escape permanently?
- to lay low for a while but return?
- to spend it and return before honey knows?
- to buy/invest in something to A. retrieve or B. keep there?
 
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Its wide open, just an idea starter but I know that limits allow creativity to flourish..so..

The $10K will be missed, but its not the end of the world, he didn't steel it or anything.. lets say it was a cash a payment for a discount swimming pool... (echoes of Clarke Griswold?)

The other part is unknown.. heck he doesn't even know why hes on the plane.. maybe he never gets on the plane.. he just has a fantasy sitting in the parking garage (cliche ending?)

Or.. he changes his mind just as he walks up to the counter, on his way out of the airport to the long term parking lot he THEN gets ensnared in some LOCAL mischief, thereby avoiding the exotic locales production issues, though he still has to explain to his wife WHY he was at the airport to begin with.. which I still think is a interesting conflict\problem...
 
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Suppose our hero wants extremes...could he make it to the North Pole? Or the South Pole? On a whim? Maybe a bar bet carried way too far?

Maybe he read about that case of vintage whiskey abandoned with Ernest Shakelton's South Pole expedition at the turn of the century, figures it would be worth at least a hundred grand by now, and wants to try looking for it.

Could he make it to the south pole with 10 grand? This story would require much research.
 
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I'd buy an Armani suit, and a Samsonite briefcase, then fly to Washington Dc. I'd set up a banking company, declare bankruptcy, then go to congress the next day for my 3 trillion dollar bailout. After all, I deserve it, I'm the victim here that was so smart he couldn't make money by owning a bank. After that it's time to offer balloon payment mortgages to the poor, and sell off the forclosures to Wells Fargo, the world's most trustworthy philanthropists. With my new-found 5 trillion dollars, I'd go to nieve Indian casino owners and offer to use the clout I'd earned in congress by receiving the bailout to sway zoning laws in their favor.

Now, I'm a hero, with my face on TV, driving an expensive car, and wearing a beautiful hand tailored suit. Some middle class people with their pointless IQ's will point out that I'm nothing more than a common criminal, But the teams of high pay-low ethics lawyers I've hired will make short work of that noise. There's now no one I can't buy, the system works! Meritocracy forever!

Cue confetti! I am the American Dream!

:yes:

ps. watch Casino Jack with Kevin Spacey, great film
 
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