Acting out

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I used to think I was a great actor. I still think that, partially because I'm more stuck-up than a Post-it, but also because I was finally asked to do what only the greatest actors are asked to do.

No, I wasn't asked to play Hamlet or Lady Macbeth or Tree #3 in my town's production of "Shakespeare Shorts," which, by the way, is a terrible name for little productions of this kind.

I was asked to submit an invoice.

I have never submitted invoices anywhere up to this point, mostly because I am not good enough at doing things to get paid for them.

Raking a neighbor's lawn? I did it for free. My parents never let me bill my neighbors when I was doing nice, neighborly acts.

They said the real value lay in doing kind things for the people who made my neighborhood what it was.

I would say the people who live in my neighborhood are a real neighborly pain in the neck.

I had neighborly pains in a lot of places after raking for three hours while it was drizzling, but there you go. Tons of neighborly kindness, zero neighborly dollars.

But it wasn't nil when it came to acting. I got paid for that.

It was for voice acting, and it was for a grand total of $30.

I recorded a supporting character for two episodes of… I shall not be ashamed to type it… a radio show called "Peace, Love, and Cupcakes."

Okay, you can laugh. Once you finish, consider how awesome it is to be paid for acting, period.

All of a sudden, "Peace, Love, and Cupcakes" starts to sound a lot more impressive, doesn't it?

If you average $30 over the hours I actually spent recording and editing, my rate comes out to something like $8.50 per hour.

Of course, people like Tom Cruise get checks for $30 million at a time, but I would honestly argue that a cool 30 bucks, taken proportionately to my net worth, represents a lot more.

Honestly, there are probably full-time actors out there who would love to get $8.50 an hour.

Of course, now is not the time to chuck aside my tech job and rush into entertainment, but it is tempting.

It'd be grand to see my face on big billboards, even if it was to advertise something like a box of Swiffer wipes.

It'd be fantastic to have tons of money to donate to various charitable causes.

Or to pay for my parents' retirement.

Or to act in more shows with cooler names than "Peace, Love, and Cupcakes."

Even better, if I were on every TV in my neighborhood, I could finally tell all my neighbors what I really think of them, right to their neighborly faces.

But I'm not on that level yet, and probably never will be.

So maybe it'd be better to pick up that rake and get back to work.

At least some trees in the neighborhood might laugh at my celebrity impressions.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she's never quite; figured; it; out.

Previously:
• 06/23/25: All talked out
• 02/05/24: Dropping the ball
• 02/05/24: Eye eye, doctor
• 12/30/24: Bad music, cheap concerts, and all that jazz
• 12/04/24: No dollars and no sense
• 09/17/24: Gone crackers
• 09/12/24: A matter of manners
• 08/21/24: Keeping things simple --- is hard
• 08/13/24: DIY = 'Destroy It Yourself'
• 06/26/24: All in a day's work
• 05/23/24: The state of the art
• 05/16/24: Rounding one's corners
• 03/22/24: Gone loopy
• 03/05/24: Philosophy rocks