Tag: Nomad

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The Island of Lost Clothes

When you live your life eternally rummaging through a suitcase around the world, although you end up with an interesting collection of ticket stubs, post cards, knick-knacks and foreign hot sauce, you are also left with an astounding lack of clothing.

Most of my trips have encompassed a strapped-on backpack, not a rolling matching suitcase set, leaving me with no other options but to recycle clothing over and over again, mercilessly wearing them down until they have only two options to deal with their remaining shelf life – get abandoned or get lost.

Abandoning clothes at various airports throughout the world due to one too many holes, a lack of effectiveness of the sitting on a suitcase for those few extra inches of space, or simply the obvious end of an item never makes me feel guilty – instead, it makes me feel like I got my money’s worth and I actually made an economical purchase in buying something that I kept until its unfortunate end.

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Not everyone makes it through customs.

However, in my possession, besides the fact that most of what I own turns to dust, the rest of what I own simply disappears which does make me feel an insurmountable amount of guilt. Dresses, sandals, boots, shorts and tops all mysteriously vanish as they journey across the world with me, almost as if they decided all on their own that it was time to part ways and move on to a new, nameless owner.

There aren’t many things that are more frustrating than using time and effort shopping for clothing, spending hard-earned cash that could easily, and possibly more responsibly, been spent on food, and creating a place for it in an already minuscule closet only to have it evaporate into thin air and leave one forced to think back on trips weekends and weekends ago, wondering whose car or whose hotel room it could possibly be living in. I find myself constantly digging through my own laundry room, trying to remember the last time I’ve seen an item and questioning if the dryer is really eating things like I’ve always suspected.

Just today, I realized that a piece of clothing I brought with me on a weekend away was missing and I unapologetically harassed the concierge desk at the hotel asking if they had it stuffed in their lost and found. They seemed baffled that someone would call in for anything other than jewelry, wallets, car keys or other irreplaceable items, but for someone with limited time and money as myself, even this is good enough reason to inquire.

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Someone lost one two many t-shirts.

As I began to deal with the loss of yet another item, I began to really wonder where these things were ending up when I realized I was keeping my own island of lost clothes – things I had (embarrassingly) found or been given that had once  belonged to another. A tank top a friend found on the side of the road at Syracuse University, a red dress the same friend had stolen from a laundry room and sent to me, accompanied by a clever poem. A bracelet I found outside of a dining hall, a designer top an old employer had passed over to me after digging through her exceptional closet.

They were just faceless items, but like what I currently had in my own closet, I truly hoped that my past things had found new homes somewhere else on their own island of lost clothes. I hoped that someone had found them, probably a 14-year-old girl that fit into my stuff, and felt like she was having a pretty lucky day in the fact that she had just scored some nice thing for absolutely nothing.

Clothes are clothes and things are things – and they don’t carry real memories like we do. However, this doesn’t mean they don’t have history. And I, for one, like to think my own things that have been left globetrotting about have quite the stories to share as they jump from closet to closet and country to country, soon to be left in the hands of yet another relentless traveler.

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Long Live the Long Weekend

It’s 4:00 pm on a Friday in Advertising, and there is truly nothing else to do. Client mishaps have been mended, weekend ads have been approved, emails and calls have been returned, and people are literally spinning in their chairs, gazing out the window towards the sunny beaches to the east and tracking the Parkway traffic on their phones.

“Whatcha doin this weekend, Gina?” I ask my coworker, who is currently studying the screensaver on her computer, a snapshot of her timeshare in Florida. “I’m going to Disney,” she says casually concerning the resort that lies 1,000 miles away in Orlando, Florida.

America hates vacations. We hate wasting time, we hate having too much fun, and we hate not working, which is probably why Americans have the second to lowest average number of vacation days in a year at 16 compared to 20 other “rich countries.” Whether you’re 25 or 55, you’re already probably pretty aware that the average number of vacation days an American employee receives after one year on the job is eight and the average number they receive after 25 years on the job is 15. And the number of days employers are legally bound to provide them with? Zero. Now please tell me what the hell I am supposed to do with eight days.

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Seem stingy? Probably because it is, especially when you’re already getting frustrated with squirreling away the few vacation days that you do have and trying to make sure you can still make it to the doctor for regular checkups. On top of this pathetic number of vacation days, it turns out that only 25 percent of Americans even use the full amount of the days they are provided with. To paint a global picture, France tops the list (but not by much) by legally providing employees with 30 paid vacation days per year, followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden at 25 and trailed by Austria, Portugal and Spain at 22.

When you’ve got about two weeks of fun to last you for an entire year, you really need to work to make it count, which is why my friend Gina was, and is, taking plenty of long weekends – the new week-long vacation.

Until the United States changes its vacation policies and trends (which isn’t due to happen anytime soon since these kinds of work ethics are deeply embedded into our culture, but anyway) the long weekend is slowly becoming the new seven-day getaway. Because really – why are you going to use all those precious days in one shot (half of which you will spend bored with the family) when you can do it over and over again for two and three day snippets at a time, even if it means rolling into work Monday operating on four hours of sleep like I often see my dear traveling coworker do? (She chugs two coffees and gets going, no complaints).

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The Grand Cascades Lodge of Crystal Springs Resort in Hamburg, New Jersey

Just because you don’t live on the Amalfi Coast (well, maybe you do) or you don’t have the dollars to finance these types of grandiose trips doesn’t mean that your travel bug has to fall to the wayside. Instead of blowing all your days at once, put together day and weekend trips that will give you vacations to last the year… until you finally get that coveted job transfer to Paris, that is.

One thing goes without a doubt – planning a long weekend getaway is a lot more tiring and requires you to get a lot more creative than getting on a plane and picking up a guidebook once a year would be. You have to give nearby cities and landmarks a second look, clean out the car so you can fit all the kids, and squeeze all your errands into the weekdays.

But on the other hand – you’ll save money, have more fun more often, feel like you made the most out of your time, spend more meaningful time with your friends and family, pick up landmarks you probably should have seen a long time ago, and most of all, when your bored coworker asks you what you’re doing this weekend, your answer will always be exciting.

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The Shore Was Made for Scavengers

Following my graduation from the Jersey Shore beach paradise that is Monmouth University, I did the most reasonable thing and I could think of rented a house a block from the beach for the winter with no job prospects in sight. What could possibly go wrong?

As I signed my name in blood in that overly-air-conditioned Century 21 office three months before graduation, I knew, as a hopelessly logical human being, that what I was doing was stupid. I was panic-struck I wouldn’t be able to afford my rent, I was petrified that it was much more difficult than I had imagined to find a job, and I knew that employment down by the shore was few and far between. However, that panic was outweighed by an even greater fear – that of returning to the mountains with my parents. I hoped it would all just work out. 

I couldn’t even bear the thought of leaving my one true love, the shore. I couldn’t imagine not hearing the waves as I slept or taking an afternoon walk down Ocean Avenue or staying with all my beachrat friends in one-square-mile seaside towns. I literally didn’t know if I could fathom the loss of the paradise that I had grown accustomed to for the last four years.

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So I signed, and nine long months proceeded to drag by, similar as to how I dragged my tattered suitcase on the floor back-and-forth and back-to-forth from my dream-like beach home to my new-found place of employment… two hours north.

Even though I had fun (on the weekends) – I enjoyed long crisp runs on the Long Branch boardwalk, supplied a boarding house for my backpacked friends, and wandered to my favorite seaside bars and restaurants only miles from my house – the whole debacle was a nightmare. I totaled my car, put 9,000 miles on my new car in six months, spent money people spend to live near their jobs only I lived two hours from my job, and pretty much gave up my life for a constant view of the ocean. It was not worth it. It did not all work out.

I grew resentful of the place that I loved. I angrily drove down Ocean in my 9,000 miles-older car, glaring at the winterized and empty version of the place that used to be mine. I probably spent most of my time in my room, drinking wine alone and packing my things for the next journey north, which came every four days at which point I would camp out at my mother’s home for three days (an hour and a half away from my work also) before returning back to the shore.

But, thankfully, all bad things must come to an end. The lease ended, I got a new job, and… I moved back to the mountains. With my parents.

This transition seemed equally daunting. Move home? Back to the middle of nowhere? With my… mom? Oh god. Why life.

However, the summer started up quickly and my friends rallied me to their places in Seaside, Point Pleasant and Long Branch. Most weekends, I run around my room, eagerly throwing my belongings into a patched backpack before getting in my car and eating my dinner on my lap so I can make it to my friends’ homes before they go out for the night. I sleep on dingy basement couches, I eat Jersey bagels from my driver’s side, I shower at the beach, and… I’m so happy. 

Things will probably change once the summer hoopla wears down and I miss my beach (and my old reliable beach house) once again, but for now, I think a lot of the shore appeal for me is the nomadic pull of it all.

Part of the fun is wondering on Friday afternoons, How am I going to get there? and Where am I going to sleep? I kind of like trying to find a secluded spot to change clothes in my car or sketchily sneak into bathrooms. I like not knowing when my time in paradise is going to end and who I am going to end up seeing from my favorite spot on North Beach. If paradise becomes the everyday, is it still paradise? If it becomes your home, can you resist not taking it for granted, not counting its flaws? Can you get sick of the most stunning window view you could ever think up?

I really don’t know.

But what I do know is that the shore was made for scavengers with backpacks in their cars and dirt on their faces… which is why that’s where you’ll find me every weekend, every time.

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Why I Love Being Poor

“Jen, I could seriously hook you up in a heartbeat,” says my father. “Why the hell wouldn’t you want to work on Wall Street?!”

Like everybody else who has ever existed, I would love to dine with millionaires on two-hour lunches, drive a red Ferrari, and wear $2,000 shoes… from nine to five, Monday through Friday. As Jordan Belfort so kindly pointed out in The Wolf of Wall Street, “I’ve been a rich man and a poor man, and I choose rich every time.” I, too, have been a rich woman and a poor one (although not quite as rich as Belfort) and although I relish extensive shopping trips and boat outings, there is one occupation that I feel is better off experienced as a nomadic, dirty being – and that is of a traveler.

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I’ve stayed in fancy chain hotels in Budapest and hairy hostels in Milan. Although I kind of remember laying in that Budapest Marriott and watching some Disney movie on TV, I can vividly recall the off-green Italian hostel with pubic hairs littered on the itchy twin bed next to the barred window. I remember sitting up at night, wrapped in my sweats, trying not to touch anything as I listened to the drunken tourists stumbling home from outside. I remember spending the day being dirty, wandering Milan with a backpack strapped on wondering where I could pee. At the chance of sounding like your mom, being a poor traveler makes you interesting, resourceful, and perhaps most appealing, the most captivating storyteller on this side of the Atlantic. 

I’ve purchased overpriced designer dresses in Madrid and lost my shoes at the airport. That navy blue dress still sits like-new in my closet from four years ago, a little too European and expensive for anything casual here in the States. However, my $20 brown boots from Kohl’s ventured Italy years later, stomping the cobblestone streets during the night many times over before eventually falling to pieces at the Amsterdam Shiphol Airport. It’s the cheap items that become priceless; living out their days being worn and being useful before dying a noble death most likely outside of the confines of your closet.

I’ve met rich Columbians with closets as big as my room and dirty Australians who spend their days wandering shirtless. When we think of the rich and powerful, our minds default to thinking of their exciting lives jet setting the world, eating the finest food, and rubbing elbows with the coolest people. In reality, it’s the nomad travelers that do this without ever having to fake one sentiment. I’ve met countless backpackers who spend their days with smiles on their faces picking fruit, bar tending, and food running as they see countries that others don’t even consider as destinations. It’s these behind-the-scenes people that live the real adventures, not the ones who have never had to leave their comfort zone.

I’ve eaten “top-notch” food at the finest restaurants in the world and home-cooked stews on grandmother’s porches. It’s undeniable that $100 steaks and the rarest wines aren’t scrumptious, but when you leave, what else do you have to say but Wow that was a great steak but now I’m out $200? When I think back to my most memorable meals, I don’t think of these gourmet pastas at tourist spots but instead I remember the nights I spent on Norwegian porches sampling home-cooked elk and whale with a view of the fjords below. Food needs a story – something you won’t find for many restaurants in the guidebook.

Being rich is great when you’re a shopper, great when you’re a businessperson, and great when you’re trying to impress the flavor of the month. But when that time comes around when it’s my turn to see the world once again, I prefer to revert back to the filthy nomad I am at heart.

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How to Pack Like a Pro

In my current days of adult travel (in which trips are few and far between yet easily financed) it’s simple for me to pull out my biggest suitcase, stuff it full of crap, and be about my way. However, back in my days of being a lost undergrad looking to see the world, this was definitely not the case.

My Wal-Mart backpack, now muddled with the patches of various states and countries and somehow lacking any sort of holes or disfigurements, would be packed to the brim with essentials most Thursday or Friday nights on my newest journey out of town. When I would arrive at my chosen destination and someone would ask me, “Hey, can I borrow your umbrella? I couldn’t fit mine in my bag,” I would sometimes sneak a smile.

Packing like the nomad you truly are requires skill, dedication, patience, and intuition. It is not a task for the weak of heart, similar to travel in itself. If you’re about to fly first class to the Galapagos Islands, ignore this post. But if you’re planning to hop on a bus, then a train, then hitchhike to the nearest hostel with a backpack strapped on, read on.

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1. Roll your clothes. Even though they look way nicer when folded, rolling your clothes and tightly stacking them in a suitcase saves a ton of space… as well as the ensuing wrinkles.

2. Put on your heaviest items. This means that when you step into the airport, your biggest boots and thickest jackets and sweatshirts should be on you, not tucked inside your bag.

3. Wear what you know you’re going to wear. A nomadic trip is not the time and place to pack that dress you bought two years ago that you’ve been meaning to wear. You’re just going to end up wasting space and possibly trying to sell it on eBay when you get home.

4. Give space bags a go. Or pseudo space bags since the real thing is kind of pricey for what is a glorified plastic bag. If you’re really looking to save space, buy yourself tons of large freezer bags and stuff your clothes inside and sit on them to squeeze out the air. Prepare to bring extras since they will pop before your journey home.

5. Pack solid items on the bottom. Clothes will morph around, say, your lava lamp, however your bag will not be able to close directly on top of it. For this reason, pack shoes, lava lamps, and other heftier items on the bottom of your suitcase.

6. Avoid packing clothing that only has one purpose. Instead of packing that shirt that you can only wear to a club, pack the tank top that can be paired with a multi-use pair of pants. You need to get the most out of the space that you have.

7. Don’t pack items that are on their last leg out. If you’ve got one pair of shoes packed but they’re clinging to life, the place to kill them isn’t somewhere along your trip to Budapest. Leave them at home and pack (or wear) the item that is going to be reliable.

8. Keep yourself mobile. Even if you can pack a suitcase the size of a small garage, that doesn’t mean you should. No amount of clothes is worth being that guy lagging behind the group dragging your stuff around. It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing. You always want to be able to comfortably carry all your own stuff in one bag and maybe a purse.

9. Pack the night before. Even though it’s sometimes more convenient to wait until the day of, especially if you’re leaving later in the day or you don’t really have a lot of toiletries to leave laying around, pack the night before so before you fall asleep, you can jot down anything you forgot about during the packing process so you can pack it the next morning.

9.  Allot double the amount of time to packing than necessary. For some reason, I always think I’m going to shoot through packing in one hour, although I have literally never accomplished this. Always set aside double the amount of time for unforseen circumstances… like trying to decide if you really need those four-inch wedges.

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Things You Didn’t Know About Me

Normally, I am a huge advocate of not getting too personal on your blog. No one cares about the crap food you ate on the plane, the fact that the dude next to you kept touching your knee on the flight, or why you now regret traveling with your mom. However, 500+ followers and 137 posts later, I feel that it is time for you to hear a little bit more about the person who is always on the Life Aboard the Traveling Circus.

1. The first foreign country I visited was Norway, which I considered the Sears of the mall of Europe. When I was 17, my poor father toted my sister and I off to Norway to meet our family members in Bergen and get some culture in our blood. At first, we didn’t see it as such – it was effing cold in the pit of July, there was way too much hiking to be done, and we were sleeping in someone’s converted library. However, somewhere between the constant daylight and centuries-old city, the whole thing became kind of cool and Norway became our underdog of Europe instead of the store in the mall people never really want to go to unless they need a dishwasher. This trip spurred my need to see more; to get out of what was ordinary.

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Voss, Norway

2. My second trip to Europe was a three-week backpacking tour of Europe… armed with one other 17-year-old. I literally have no idea why my parents let me do this – probably because they don’t like me that much. Most people end up visiting our neighbors across the pond via school trip with chaperons and respected adults – I went with my high school friend armed with a backpack from my grandmother and some clothes I knew I wouldn’t miss. This can be considered jumping in with both feet – I had never even gone camping before. Nevertheless, it was my first real taste of venturing outside my comfort zone and into London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia.

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Loch Lomond, Scotland

3. I almost didn’t study abroad because I liked a boy. And then I signed up one day because I was feeling particularly adventurous. From my first year of college, I always thought about studying abroad, but it seemed like a far-off pipe dream with all the paperwork and planning that had to go into it – not easy considering my constantly changing majors and minors and over-analyzing nature (If this is you, go anyway. It’s gonna be OK). When I was getting ready to finally do it – sign up to go to London, England for the semester – something happened where I thought that the boy I liked throughout college was finally going to give me a chance (he didn’t). I hesitated and decided to give it another year to see what happened. The next year, I took a chance and moved in with my friend, which turned out awesome, and I figured why not give this one a go too? and that day, I put my name on the Florence, Italy list. I chose Florence based on a materialistic pro/con list my roommate and I made… that day.

4. I’ve never really lived anywhere for more than a short amount of time. Until I was in fifth grade, I had never been in the same school system for more than two years, and even after this, we continued to move around for various ridiculous reasons. Even if we weren’t getting ready for yet another move, I was rarely home; instead, I was constantly staying over friends’ houses and trying to create a home for myself and get on the ins with their families so I would always be welcome. I always spent a lot of time in cars… which is probably why I feel uncomfortable being in the same place for a long period of time now.

5. I crave the dirtiness of travel. I hate to admit it, and you probably wouldn’t guess it from following this blog, but I’m the most straitlaced and organized person you’ll ever meet. I am frequently picked on for my incessant list-making and perfectionism – I battle deep anxiety if everything isn’t in its place. However, this is why I am pulled towards travel – it is the precise opposite. I like not knowing, even if just for a bit, if I will be showering that day, what time I’m gonna crash into bed, where I will crash into bed, and even if my shoes will make it to see tomorrow.

What would people never guess about you?

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The Cliffs of Moher, Ireland

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For the Pursuit of Fun

When I was in school, everyday was another day. Every single day and every single hour was different, exciting, unexpected, fun. When I came home at the end of a long day, it would be hard for me to run out of stories to tell my roommates as we sat in our dark room on the shoreline, listening to the waves come in and our old crappy apartment rattle in the wind.

Those days, fun came pretty naturally, because even the work you did involved all of your friends. I guess because you’re surrounded by kids all day, you kind of feel like you deserve to have fun, like it’s just an expected everyday occurrence. Even still, you knew it was special. You knew you were happy, you knew this was the life, and you also knew it wasn’t going to last forever.

The moment I graduated, everything switched around. All of a sudden I felt guilty for having fun, even for just spending a lazy day having breakfast with friends and bsing with the neighbors and harassing the cat. As I peer over at my looming to-do list, I always feel like I should be doing something else. 

This is an easy mindset to fall into once we quietly tiptoe into the real world – it’s easy to get caught up in running errands and making sure the laundry is done and you took your vitamins and the car has a full tank of gas. Soon, you’re spending everyday just preparing for the next, and you’re not even really sure what the point of preparing is if you’re just going to do the same thing tomorrow.

I miss the days where I lived life for the pursuit of fun. I miss when I felt like it was normal to hop on a bus to go to another country, or spend the day window shopping on the streets of Florence, the most beautiful city in the world, or it was just another day when you turned off your shower radio in the morning to listen to the man playing the accordion in the piazza outside the window.

So you know what? Let’s forget about the laundry and a dish in the sink never killed anyone. It may be a while before I’m out of my parent’s house and back in a real live city again and, oddly, actually live in the real world and maintain a real life, but I’m sick of that being the reason that I feel bad for wanting to remember what I did yesterday.

Never get so busy living that you forget to make a life. 

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Heart

I haven’t slept in days.

Night after night, I lie awake in the various beds that I call my stopping points in my never-ending pilgrimage across New Jersey, and although I wake up before the sun can be seen and I lie down long after I ever wanted to, I can’t get my heart to stop beating so ferociously although my eyes are begging it to just be quiet so that maybe, we can get to work on time tomorrow.

No matter where I was or what I was doing, the most fruitful sleeps that I remember are the ones where I worked alongside the world by day, exploring and smiling, whether it be in the sunshine or beneath a faded blue poncho. I think of running into the various places I called home after breathlessly working to open the locks, my friends and I stumbling through doorways and collapsing on unclaimed beds, so tired we could barely bear to put up our hair or take off our boots. These rests were the ones that only came after a day climbing up mountains, battling the rain, running from misfits, and doggy-paddling the Atlantic and dingy ponds alike.

They didn’t really have much to do with waking up to a blaring alarm, strapping on a pair of heels in the parking lot, or packing a lunch. It was those days, back in the day, where I don’t really remember feeling my own heart beating out of my chest, but instead I felt it blaring in my brain, saying, Wow, isn’t this place magnificent or How did we ever end up here?

Never in my life have I been so tired as I am these days, never in my life have I worked so hard to achieve a dutiful eight hours rest. Ironically, never in my life have I moved so slowly, either, and for the first time, I find myself trying to pull free the heart in it all.

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The Five Best Things About Nomad Life

There are tons of travel blogs and websites out there that will advise you on lots of really great information for people with disposable income – like the most luxurious wedding destinations, the most fashionable cities, the coolest airlines flying the skies. However, as you probably already know, Life Aboard The Traveling Circus isn’t about jet setting middle-aged bores who wear fur coats and drink cocktails in first class – it’s about dingy wanderers with used scarves and unclean hair hopping trains and sipping cold beer.

However, even though this kind of life is always new, always exciting, and always dirty, it sometimes can take a toll on our heavy and tired hearts. Once in a while, we yearn for a stable spot to sleep, a clean pair of drawers, and a toothbrush that hasn’t been sitting on the bottom of a backpack. Unfortunately, sometimes we get a little stuck. We’re already on the road and the option to lie in a bed that only we have laid in isn’t an option. So for those days, when even you, ever-exciting you, would kill to wake up in a room that isn’t shared, here are some reminders of why nomad life is freakin’ awesome.

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1. You will never have too much junk. Actually, you will never really have any junk. You may have started out with birthday cards, vacation shot glasses, and bobble heads, but let’s be serious, when you started living out of a backpack all that stuff slowly began trickling away. Without any junk, your life becomes more clear, unclogged by material items that don’t really have much meaning after all. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper to travel light when you’re not paying overweight baggage fees.

2. You have the coolest friends all over the globe. When you’re stuck in one place, you probably hang out with the same people most of the time – they’re probably good kids, they’re probably an okay time, and bowling and movies on Saturday night isn’t so bad. But when you travel, you meet people in a whole new ball game. The people you will come across have no fear, no ties, and no regrets. They’re down to work hard and play hard – everyday. They want to stay up all night, they want to talk to every person in the room, they want to jump in the ocean at midnight, and then they want to do it all again tomorrow… in another country.

3. You make yourself built-in parents. I don’t know about you, but at this point, my parents are kind of over me. They don’t want to make me lunch anymore, they don’t want to pay for my dinner, and they don’t really want to listen to my boy problems. However, parents across the globe never get tired of taking care of new scavengers. Once they have empty nests, they love having some lost kid to take care of for a few days… before they get sick of them, too, so in the meantime, it’s nice to have someone tell you about back in the day for a little while and bake you some cookies.

4. The little things in life stop mattering. When you don’t have much else going on, it’s easy to get irritated with the dumb chores you have to do – doing the laundry, going to the food store because you ran out of instant coffee, putting the dishes away after dinner three days ago. However, when you’re traveling, none of this stuff matters anymore. You can revert back to being a kid, when you ran rampart, jumped in mud puddles, and ate Pop-Tarts for dinner. There is something incredibly liberating about having a day free enough that you can literally just do whatever you want, whether that be cliff jumping, biking the ramparts, or drinking wine before five… Just because you feel like it.

5. You always go to bed tired. Living nine-to-five life can be rough in more ways than one. You’re tired all day long, but by the time you go to bed, you lie awake with your mind running, wondering what the hell you’re doing with your life and where it’s all heading. However, when you’re traveling, no matter if you’re sleeping in the Four Seasons or on some rando’s couch, every night, you go to bed dead tired, fulfilled, and surrounded by the mess of the day. No salary is worth more than that.