Thank God It’s Flemensday II. Eating on a budget.

I used to be rich.

I earned an oversized wage working in London advertising. It was obscene because the job was essentially a non-thing.

From what I remember of the role it was standing in front of other white people saying things like, “Itwidth’s a culturally bleeding edge, memeable viral that’s very on-trend that will live as branded content and excite the core target without alienating the secondary target.”

And then I’d show everyone a picture of a cat wearing sunglasses drinking INSERT PRODUCT, a B-list celebrity doing a very dope rap about INSERT PRODUCT or a distraught father who unwittingly killed his whole family because he forgot to use INSERT PRODUCT.

At this point, all the white people in the meeting would stop chewing on their pens and do awkward hi-5’s while some lady named Sandra or Jessica or Linda would say, “Let’s put it into research.” And then they’d give me enough money to choke a horse.

I don’t have a job any more because I walked through the advertising agency pretending to shoot people with an invisible gun, sucking a helium balloon and laughing like a crazed Santa Claus while wearing a suit made from the skins of his recently murdered elf helpers. After I did that I was sent home to ‘rest’ for a little while/forever.

Now my ‘job’ is cleaning up after a puppy named Pig. I’m the CEO of wiping up dog piss with a handy towel –  it’s a promotion. As you may already guess my salary for that ‘job’ is zilch, nothing, nada, zip. I no longer earn a penny and haven’t earned for quite some time…which could explain my recent bout of impotence.

How I’ve been dealing with this precarious financial situation is a rather ingenious method I invented which I call ‘ignoring it.’

It involves ‘pretending the problem doesn’t exist’ and ‘living in a dangerous fantasy land’. Until recently this technique had worked brilliantly. But that was until last Flemensday when the old, gold credit card lost its mysterious ability to magically produce Canggu Deli steak out of thin air.

So on Flemensday I had to step back into the real world and check my London bank balance…

The last time I was that nervous was when I was waiting for the results of an AIDS test that I had to get after a particularly adventurous session in an Argentinean truck-stop toilet with woman named Martina who used to be a dude named Ramon.

He/she had boobs made out of what felt like wine casks filled with cold sick and carried a handbag containing very strong amphetamines and a rat named ‘Frisky’. The things Martina/Ramon did with a toilet brush still make me smile/wince even today. Ahh, to be young again.

The result of my AIDS test were, thankfully, mostly negative, so all I got from that encounter was a Spanish speaking pen pal who wrote me letters in eye pencil. And a phobia of rats.

But I didn’t truly know fear until I looked at my online bank balance. That tiny number on the bottom line was a hell of a lot scarier than any rat – even one who lived on a diet of South American crank and transvestite tears.

I used to dislike the poor intensely.

I used to find their starvation, homelessness and sartorial bleakness a stone cold bummer and would do everything I could to avoid them, shun them and sometimes even mock them.

But now that I am in danger of becoming one of them, I’d like to take this moment to apologise for all the terrible things I yelled at them from the window of my blacked out Mercedes and sincerely ask that they share their putrid gruel with me and maybe let me sniff some of their glue if, or when, we meet up in the gutter.

I’m not broke.

Not flat broke. I’m running on fumes. More accurately I’m running on the fumes of fumes. Not on my arse bones just yet but it’s looming large on the horizon unless I can pull some money in and pronto, tonto.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “No big deal – simply impregnate your wife and sell the baby on the black market.”

Normally a brilliant thought, as a disease free, Caucasian baby will always fetch a decent price amongst the hordes of barren middle aged women who chose their career over family and now cry themselves dry every lunchtime in the stalls of corporate toilets all over the western world.

But the gestation period of a human infant is too long – even if I encourage my wife to smoke heavily throughout the pregnancy and have the bite-sized baby a few months early. I need to do something fast.

At this juncture one starts cataloguing ones marketable skills. The thing about ‘advertising’ as a skill is that it really isn’t anything.

It’s all smoke and mirrors – the smoke coming from the piles of money that we used to burn to dispose of our dead souls and mirrors for staring into while we wink at ourselves and make the final adjustments to our $200.00 haircuts.

It’s not like chair making, motorbike fixing or air conditioner repairing. Those are actual things – advertising is just putting sunglasses on cats.

But after days of thinking and self-examination I have come up with the one thing I believe I have that I can use to earn money.

I have very, very pretty feet.

That’s it. That’s my future. I have very, very pretty feet. It’s now that you’d expect to see a photo or maybe a series of photos of my feet by way of proof, but that can’t happen I’m afraid.

I can’t just give it away anymore – these feet and their aesthetic superiority are my meal ticket and I can’t risk over exposure – I’m not going the same route as Kim Kardashians arse. I have too much business savvy for that.

So how will I monetize my very, very pretty feet?

Have you ever been on Google past the 1^st page of search results and on to the murky world of page 2? I think this is what they are talking about when they talk about the ‘dark web.’

Page 2 is full of the web’s seedier businesses and services. The ones with bad SEO practices and fringe offerings that one can’t buy with one click on Amazon.

It’s there I have found the foot forums and my possible salvation.

The chatrooms and websites where the foot fetishists dwell.

Men sitting in the dark, one hand on the mouse the other jamming a football sock into their own mouths and sucking on toenail clippings they bought off eBay. It’s a shameful truth but it’s the only option I have at my age with my lack of abilities, rapidly dwindling bank balance and very, very pretty feet.

I’m not proud – I’m desperate.

So at this point, I’m readying my feet for their debut to repressed middle class males and other such enthusiasts. My feet need to be made perfect to attract top dollar. As you can probably guess, the life of a serious foot fetish model is one of constant up keep and maintenance.

So…

I’m really trying to limit corn-causing walking by having a dude carry me places on his back – but because of the money situation I can really only afford to continue this for the next week or so. If anyone out there knows someone who’s thinking of becoming a calf muscle model and wants to keep their calves muscular but might be too broke to pay for gym membership, maybe the they want to piggy back a middle aged dude with gorgeous feet around Canggu and work on their definition? Leave a message in the comments section below.

The other thing I’m doing is rubbing goose fat all over my feet and sleeping in stockings to lock the moisture in and right now, as I write this, both of my spectacular feet are being gently nibbled by those little fish that eat the dead skin off tourists. I have a tank at home now which wasn’t easy to set up. I had to steal the fish from Kuta by putting them in my mouth like a Pelican and getting them back home while they turned my gums into hamburger meat wasn’t pleasant or advisable.

The good news is my feet have never looked better and once they’re in tip-top shape I’ll be offering a webcam service where disturbing men with foot fetishes can Skype me and choose from my menu of erotic treats including:

• Stamping a live octopus to death – $1000.00 (will provide octopus)
• Pressing on accelerator of sportscar or 4WD – $500.00
• Wearing woman’s high-heels and kicking a rugby ball – $500.00
• Toe-painting a portrait of client – $300.00
• Sucking own toes – $500.00 (will need 3 weeks notice to gain required flexibility)
• Covering feet in dirty, dirty mud and cleaning slowly with toothbrush – $300.00
• “This little piggy went to the market” – $200.00 (foreign language add $50.00)
• Clipping toenails to classical music – $200.00
• Wearing Crocks for a day and removing them to reveal foot sweat and tourist grime – $1000.00
• Doing all parts of the opening credits to classic film Footloose – $300.00

 I’m actually pretty excited by the prospect as it’s work I can do while I’m crying like an orphan and I don’t have to comb my hair or wear a shirt.

But until I build up my clientele and spend my days sexually gratifying deeply creepy men with my very, very pretty feet and the money starts rolling in, I’m living on a budget. Which includes food.

With this in mind I’m hitting the Canggu Warungs hard and for those of you with no money and ugly feet, here’s where I’m going. These are my top three best joints for the money:

Warung Bu Mi – Fresh, plentiful and cheap. Full of locals and Canggu residents. Try the pumpkin and the beef rending. They also do a good line in fish.

Warung Veruna – On the way to Old Man’s. Always buzzing with surfers and yoga types. A fantastic selection and open for dinner. Try the satay – the peanut sauce is wicked.

Warung Canggu – Hammer the BBQ chicken and spicy eggplant skewers. The Urap is excellent too. Great value for money and will pass as a venue for a date for you cheap sonsovbitches.

Until next Flemensday.